THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


FROM 


CAPITALISM  TO  DEMOCRACY 


BY 

ALBION  W.  SMALL 


A     CYCLE     OF    CONVERSATIONS    AND 
DISCOURSES     WITH    OCCASIONAL 
SIDE-LIGHTS    UPON    THE 
SPEAKERS 


INTEB-COLLEOIATH     PRESS 
KANSAS     CITY.    -    MISSOURI 


Copyrieht  1913 

By 

Inter-Colleeialc  Press 


LH 


-^Sh 


DEDICATED 

TO  THE  FERTILE  FELLOW- 
SHIP OF  MEN  AND  WOMEN 
WHO  RATE  THE  INTER- 
ESTS OF  THE  WHOLE 
ABOVE  THE  CLAIMS  OF 
THEIR    SPECIAL    KIND. 


^ 


t  1381 01 4 


IF  ALL  MEN  SAW  THINGS 
FROM  THE  SAME  POINT 
OF  VIEW,  THERE  WOULD  BE 
NO  SOCIAL  PROBLEMS,  AND 
CONSEQUENTLY  N  O  PROG- 
RESS. THE  WISER  WE  ARE, 
THE  MORE  WE  MAY  ADD  BOTH 
TO  OUR  KNOWLEDGE  AND  TO 
OUR  VALUE  FOR  OUR  FELLOW 
MEN  BY  LOOKING  OFTEN 
AT  LIFE  THROUGH  THE 
EYES      OF      OUR      OPPOSITES. 


TABLE  OF   CONTENTS 


THE  PROBLEM CHAPTER  I 

"The  main  thread  of  the  story  is  the  evolution  of  an 
ascending  scale  of  wants  in  people's  minds." 

THE  MEDIATOR CHAPTER  II 

"Action,  and  happiness  in  action,  and  richer  life  for  every- 
body as  the  result  of  action,  were  the  literal  terms  of  his 
theology." 

THE  CRISIS CHAPTER  III 

"It  would  surrender  the  fundamental  principle  that  every 
business  must  be  run  by  its  owners,  not  by  outsiders." 

THE  MISFITS CHAPTER  IV 

"Mrs.  Kissinger  subscribed  in  a  passive  way  to  the  formal 
creed  that  it  is  everybody's  duty  to  be  useful;  but  she  knew 
of  no  way  in  which  her  own  daughter  could  be  useful  with- 
out losing  caste." 

THE  PROPHET CHAPTER  V 

"It  followed  that  if  more  churches  could  shed  their  re- 
ligious trappings  and  adopt  an  essentially  religious  policy 
toward  the  needs  of  everyday  people,  they  would  presently 
be  alive  with  the  very  masses  that  now  stand  aloof." 

THE  PHILANTHROPIST CHAPTER  VI 

"No  one  remarked  that  prevention  before  the  accident, 
or  quick  action  afterwards,  would  have  been  worth  more 
than  the  cure  likely  to  be  effected  at  this  late  day." 

THE  SAFE  AND  SANE CHAPTER  VII 

"The  real  issue  is  this: — How  do  you  know  that  your 
better  judgment  hasn't  usurped  more  authority  than  it  is 
entitled  to  as  a  dictator  to  men  of  poorer  judgment?" 

THE  INSURGENT CHAPTER  VIII 

"The  ground  plan  of  a  democracy  is  that  all  shares  in  the 
profits  of  the  cooperation  shall  be  paid  for  in  work,  and 
that  no  one  shall  have  any  rights  that  he  does  not  earn." 

THE  UNCONVINCED CHAPTER  IX 

"But  what's  the  use?  The  only  difference  between  me 
and  the  rest  of  the  Company  is  that  they  don't  believe  a 
word  of  these  things,  while  I  subscribe  to  them  in  the 
abstract  but  don't  believe  they  are  available." 


THE  MORALIST CHAPTER  X 

"The  key  to  tlic  social  struj^Rle  in  its  present  stape  is  the 
ijuestion: — Shall  the  social  aim  be  to  use  men  for  the  sake 
oi  capital,  or  to  use  capital  for  the  sake  of  men?" 

THE  PILLARS  OF  SOCIETY CHAPTER  XI 

■'Everything  that  the  gentleman  said  about  capital  would 
have  been  equally  true  in  itself  and  equally  irrelevant  to  the 
question  at  issue,  if  it  had  been  alleged  of  the  atmosphere 
and  the  sunlight  instead  of  capital." 

THE  DOOR  OF  HOPE CHAPTER  XII 

"Whether  the  world  is  getting  closer  together  or  pulling 
wider  apart,  depends  upon  the  number  of  us  that  can  shake 
ourselves  free  from  handicaps,  so  that  we  can  count  for  all 
we  are  worth  in  the  common  interest." 

THE  RENEGADE CHAPTER  XIII 

"All  the  men  whose  brains  are  not  thicker  than  their 
necks  will  come  to  it  sooner  or  later.  Some  of  them  still 
get  their  fun  going  West  to  kill  bear,  but  as  a  pure  sporting 
proposition  coming  East  to  rescue  the  unconscious  rich 
from  themselves  has  a  sure  shade." 

THE  SENTIMENTALIST CHAPTER  XIV 

"While  one  of  the  chief  counts  in  his  theoretical  indict- 
ment of  the  system  was  that  it  was  mechanical  throughout, 
from  power  house  to  President's  office,  with  no  room  for 
human  sensibilities,  yet  after  his  feelings  had  been  moulded 
into  a  certain  form  for  a  generation,  he  could  not  rid  himself 
of  the  hauntings  of  a  thoroughly  inconsistent  loyalty  to  the 
Company." 

THE  TRANSFORMATION CHAPTER  XV 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  world  never  possessed  an  abso- 
lutely infallible  automatic  consumer  of  human  rights  until 
it  invented  capitalism." 

THE  NOVICE CHAPTER  XVI 

"These  two  weeks  burst  the  shell  of  Hester's  intuition 
that,  for  her  class,  relief  of  distress  was  less  goodness  than 
polite  evasion  of  the  issue." 

THE  PRICE  OF  PROGRESS CHAPTER  XVII 

"We  should  have  no  saving  of  life  by  means  of  the  ope- 
rating room  if  some  one  hadn't  the  nerve  to  cause  suffering 
for  the  sake  of  relieving  it." 


THE  SOCIOLOGIST CHAPTER  XVIII 

"The  upshot  was  that  all  the  folks  who  stopped  to  talk 
the  matter  over  between  innings  agreed  that  live-and-help- 
live  ought  to  be  the  game,  and  that  every  body  would  get 
more  out  of  it  in  the  end,  after  it  was  fairly  learned,  than 
they  were  getting  out  of  the  live-and-let-live  game." 

THE  WAR  COLLEGE CHAPTER  XIX 

"It  ought  to  be  easy  for  old  college  men  to  take  up  a 
mooted    question    in   the    same    spirit    they   used    to    show 

when  they  got  a  good  grip  on  a  subject  for  debate 

If  there  was  something  to  be  said  after  all  for  the  moon's 
being  made  of  green  cheese,  it  never  entered  their  heads 
to  block  discussion  by  pleading  vested  rights." 

THE  ILLUSION  OF  CAPITALISM  ....    CHAPTER  XX 
"The  only  producers  of  wealth  are  nature  and  labor  .... 
....  nature  and  labor  always  supply  the  power,  while  cap- 
ital is  merely  the  grist  and  the  millstone." 

THE  FALLACY  OF  DISTRIBUTION  .  .  .  CHAPTER  XXI 
"A  theory  of  economic  distribution  which  assigns  an  in- 
come to  landlord  or  capitalist  for  any  other  reason  than  that 
which  assigns  a  wage  to  the  manual  laborer  ....  is  not 
merely  a  rape  of  justice  but  an  insult  to  ordinary  intelli- 
gence." 

THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY  .      .     CHAPTER  XXIi 
"Everything  fair  and   reasonable   in  property  would  be 
affirmed   and    strengthened    if    it    were    readjusted    on    the 
service  basis." 

THE  DOVE  OF  PEACE CHAPTER  XXIII 

"Each  in  his  way  was  suffering  for  peace.  Neither  could 
quite  believe  that  the  apparently  unattainable  was  within 
such  easy  grasp.  Each  feared  to  trust  his  own  senses  that 
he  was  not  being  played  upon  by  some  spiteful  illusion." 

THE  DEGENERATE CHAPTER  XXIV 

"The  one  credit  to  the  orgy  was  a  currish  sense  of  ac- 
countability." 

THE  BROADER  DEMOCRACY     ....     CHAPTER  XXV 
"My  first  principle  is  that  it  is  the  chief  duty  of  the  Com- 
pany to  adopt  the  policy  which  will  do  most  towards  en- 
abling each  one  of  its  workers  to  make  the  most  of  his  life." 

THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH  ....     CHAPTER  XXVI 
"We  will  make  it  a  part  of  the  business  to  find  out  how 
many  instead  of  how  few  of  its  workers  may  have  a  property 
interest  and  a  shareholder's  voice  in  it." 


THE   PROBLEM 


THE    PROBLEM 


I 

THE   PROBLEM 

'The   main    thread   of   the    story   is   the    evolution   of   an 
ascending  scale  of  wants  in  people's  minds," 


<■<■   A  ND  bring  them  while  I'm  making  out  the  order.  Nicht 

/Y  wahr,  old  boy,  first  drown  the  taste  of  that  show?" 

"  'Twas  the  limit  in  Paris  last  Winter,  but  set  to  blunt  Eng- 
lish it's  vile." 

"By  way  of  rebate,  though,  I  checked  up  a  surprising  volt- 
age of  Prexy  Patton's  'moral  indignation'!  Case  of  survival 
probably.    Didn't  know  I  still  had  that  sort  of  talent !" 

''If  the  gentle  juice  of  corn  fruit  won't  restore  our  normal 
tone,  there  may  be  some  virtue  in  the  circumambient  para- 
phernalia and  deportment.  If  you  want  me  to  profit  by  your 
improving  conversation,  however,  you'll  have  to  keep  their 
various  toploftinesses  busy  at  a  distance." 

■'Things  are  rather  correct  here?" 

"They  give  the  plain  Chicago  voter  a  sinking  feeling  that 
his  sui)ply  of  used-to-it-all-my-life  behavior  may  fail  him  at  a 
critical  juncture.  I  don't  suppose  every  college  graduate  in 
New  York  is  a  member?" 

"Some  of  them  have  invested  the  equivalent  in  Yonkers 
house  lots.  Others  are  trying  to  work  their  credit  up  toward 
the  figure,  and  meanwhile  are  serving  their  time  in  the  army 
of  discontent  that  fires  blank  ammunition  at  both  clubs  and 
property." 

"Do  you  blame  them?" 

"I  should  blame  any  man  a  heap  more  that  had  the  price 
and  didn't  get  all  there  was  in  it." 

"Every  time  I  come  to  New  York  lately,"  diverged  Lyon, 
"it  seems  to  me  more  of  a  municipal  panel  house.  You've  got 
the  scavengers  and  scavengings  brushed  out  of  sight,  and  the 
people  in  the  show  rooms  put  up  a  sober  bluff  of  iDelieving 
there's  no  such  thing  as  rot  and  riot  behind  the  screen." 

"Are  we  different  from  Chicago?"  cavilled  Barclay. 

"We  have  our  share  of  the  same  old  original  sin,  but  you've 
done  a  lot  more  to  develop  your  holdings." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


"I  th<iu^lii  Chioago  owned  ii|)  to  bciuj:;  the  wiokcdcst  town 
on  earth?" 

"Chiea.uo  doesn't  own  up  to  beinji;  the  siipcrhitive  any- 
thin.i;.  In  tlie  early  days,  when  the  men  that  made  the  place 
were  too  busy  to  be  vicious,  antl  too  humdrum  to  make  good 
copy,  the  newspaj^er  boys  worked  their  imaginations  over- 
time turning  out  local  stories.  These  pii)es  gave  Chicago  its 
reputation,  and  the  rest  of  the  country  prefers  fiction  to  fact. 
Fm  no  census  sharp,  but  I'll  confide  to  you  my  guess  that 
fifteen  feet  of  New  York  frontage  cover  more  curdled  milk 
of  human  kindness  than  the  average  Chicago  block.  We  may 
be  wicked,  but  .so  far  as  execution  goes  w^e  lack  form  to  keep 
with  you  into  the  semi-finals.  We  are  fairly  equipped  with 
the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of 
life;  but  for  team  work  betw^een  them  we  are  not  in  vour 
class." 

A  scrap  over  the  comparative  merits  of  New  York  and 
Chicago  was  the  regular  warming-up  practice  whenever  Bar- 
clay and  Lyon  had  any  time  to  themselves.  Without  it  they 
woidd  hardly  have  known  how  to  resume  their  earlier  chum- 
miness.  This  time  the  wind  veered  till  the  standard  of  taste 
in  the  two  towns  was  the  storm  centre.  Lyon  at  last  took  to 
cover  with  the  concession:  ''Yes,  on  the  lower  levels  you 
distance  us.  We  may  be  gluttons,  for  instance,  but  no  one 
has  called  us  epicures.  If  we  could  serve  under-study  terra- 
pin like  this,  there  would  be  less  of  the  Chicago  peril  in  Man- 
hattan society.  Stop  me  if  it  is  Use  majeste,  but  my  frontier 
taste  demands  a  da.sh  more  sherry " 

•'Honestly,  can  you  get  a  decent  meal  in  Chicago?"  inter- 
rupted Barclay. 

"If  5-0U  are  invited  by  the  right  people ;  not  if  you  have  to 
forage  for  yourself.  For  purposes  of  brute  nutrition  we're  as 
weir  off  as  the  rest  of  the  w^orld.  If  one  craves  the  sort  of 
feeding  that  in.sinuates  flattering  unction  of  combining  all 
the  virtues  of  philosopher,  artist,  patriot  and  saint — well, 
apropos!  Chicago  is  not  yet  up  to  that  method  of  adminis- 
tering the  con.solations  of  religion." 

''Never  mind  Chicago  any  more  in  general,"  prompted 
Barclay.  "You  and  Bob  are  the  only  worth-while  particu- 
lars. Post  me  about  him  to  date.  You  know^  his  father  never 
mentions  his  name  in  the  office,  and  our  orbits  seldom  cross 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


outside.  Mr.  Halleck  and  I  work  together  all  right,  but  the 
suspicion  won't  down  that  I  get  on  his  nerves.  I'm  in  the 
place  he  intended  for  Bob.  He  used  to  imagine  a  firm  of 
Halleck  and  Halleck  at  the  head  of  the  New  York  bar.  It 
will  violate  no  confidence  to  remark  in  passing  that  one  or 
two  jealous  rivals  might  possibly  contest  this  rank  with  Hal- 
leck, Siemens  and  Barclay.  The  senior  was  to  furnish  the 
legal  lore  and  Bob  the  fireworks.  Mr.  Halleck  was  never  a 
good  mixer,  but  he  hoped  his  son  would  have  a  taste  for  pop- 
ularity. The  old  man  has  the  temper  for  a  Tammany  Boss, 
if  he  could  get  in  all  his  work  behind  a  figure  head.  You 
remember  when  Bob  was  a  Freshman  he  could  keep  up  his 
end  of  a  wrangle  with  any  upper  classman,  whether  he  knew 
anything  about  the  subject  or  not.  From  the  time  Bob  began 
to  talk,  his  father's  chief  amusement  was  to  tease  him  into 
argument  and  teach  him  all  the  logical  leads  and  counters 
and  side  steps.  He  wasn't  stuffed  with  books,  but  his  father 
did  everything  he  knew  to  make  him  shifty.  If  he  had  turned 
out  a  composite  of  Evarts  and  Choate  and  Root,  with  strains 
of  Metternich  and  Disraeli  and  Bismarck,  Mr.  Halleck  would 
have  been  merely  satisfied,  not  surprised ;  and  he  would  have 
credited  honors  about  equally  between  blood  and  training.  If 
Bob  had  gone  into  business  and  broken  the  code,  his  father 
would  have  shot  himself  like  a  gentleman.  If  the  boy  had 
run  off  with  another  man's  wife,  the  stern  parent  in  the  case 
wouldn't  have  had  to  make  a  pretense  of  being  mad  all 
through;  and  when  he  fed  the  proper  phrases  to  the  report- 
ers he  would  have  been  sincere  enough;  but  he  would  have 
consoled  himself  in  private  with  the  offset  that  the  rascal  at 
least  had  nerve.  But  to  turn  out  a  parson!  The  governor 
has  been  groggy  ever  since.  Vice  might  have  the  saving  ele- 
ment of  virility,  but  that  a  son  of  his,  with  the  chances  he 
had,  should  turn  his  back  on  man's  work  and  take  to  preach- 
ing and  praying,  is  a  freak  of  nature  without  a  redeeming 
feature  that  his  philosophy  can  discover.  It  strikes  him  as  a 
poltroonery,  an  unsexing  of  himself,  something  unclean  and 

obscene,  not  to  be  excused  nor  even  decently  named.    

But  I've  slid  into  quite  an  opening  for  the  prosecution !  You'd 
know  I  was  the  talking  partner.  The  case  has  been  making 
itself  up  in  my  mind  though,  these  dozen  years,  and  if  my 
chief  should  give  the  word  I  could  try  it  for  him  with  a  good 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


(leal  o(  his  own  spirit.  In  his  jihu'O  1  should  feel  about  the 
<aine  way." 

Lyon  was  evitlently  taken  hy  surprise,  lie  bei2;an  rallier 
uneertainly : — 

"I  haven't  exactly  specialized  on  the  clert!;y,  but  in  this 
particular  case  the  defense  needn't  go  by  default.  The  rec- 
ord niiuht  very  well  start  with  those  little  affairs  in  which 
Bob  used  to  give  Yale  something  to  think  about.  To  the  best 
of  my  recollection,  when  he  was  rij)i)ing  holes  in  the  Elis  they 
didn't  act  as  though  they  thought  the  word  'virile'  would 
overstate  him.  lie's  bucking  a  different  line  now,  but  it's  a 
harder  game.  The  toughs  never  had  a  stronger  grip  on  our 
City  Plall  than  they  had  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  Bob  Ilalleck 
started  a  new  Law  and  Order  League.  It  turned  out  that  he 
had  to  do  the  work  wdiile  the  rest  hypothecated  their  moral 
support.  He  has  had  to  fight  everything,  from  averted 
glances  to  infernal  machines,  but  the  ordinances  have  never 
been  so  honestly  enforced  as  in  the  })ast  twelve  months.  If  he 
should  quit,  the  lid  would  be  off  in  a  week.  He  has  paralyzed 
most  of  the  church  and  tem])erance  people  by  opening  a  re- 
sort in  one  of  the  labor  districts,  and  running  it  seven  days 
in  the  week  in  the  interest  of  the  men  themselves.  He  didn't 
merely  pronounce  a  benediction  over  a  saloon  and  hand  it 
back  to  the  devil.  He  stays  with  it  and  steers  it  in  the  interest 
of  good  order.  He  says  the  way  to  tame  the  saloon  is  to  tame 
it,  and  make  it  serve  as  a  means,  just  as  the  right  sort  of  club 
does  for  its  members.  He  doesn't  think  one  such  experiment 
can  cut  any  figure  in  competition  with  the  bar  business;  but 
he  is  trying  to  show,  in  a  sample  instance,  how  the  saloon 
evil  might  be  turned  into  a  relative  good,  with  the  right  sort 
of  management.  He  cuts  out  the  idea  of  profits,  and  turns 
the  whole  net  receipts  into  increasing  the  attractions  of  the 
place.  He  is  making  ])rogress  toward  a  system  of  member- 
shi]»s  and  petty  dues  that  will  carry  the  expenses  without  prof- 
its from  the  bar.  Among  other  things,  the  men  can  cash  their 
pay  checks  at  the  place,  with  no  pressure  to  spend  a  cent. 
Bob  doesn't  expect  to  throw  out  liquor  entirely,  any  more 
than  he  would  tobacco;  but  nobody  is  bound  to  drink  or 
smoke  unless  he  wants  to,  and  there  is  plenty  of  chance  to 
have  a  good  time  doing  something  else.  All  the  vicious  ele- 
ments in  the  town  are  fighting  him  on  the  crime,  and  the 
vicious  and  virtuous  together  are  fighting  him  harder  on  the 

18 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


saloon.  Whether  his  father  would  agree  with  his  theories 
or  not,  it  doesn't  seem  worth  while  to  doubt  Bob's  nerve." 

"But  if  he  wanted  to  tackle  that  sort  of  thing,"  growled 
Barclay,  "he  could  have  done  it  better  as  a  lawyer." 

"Come  now,  dear  boy,"  Lyon  whispered,  with  a  restrain- 
ing pianissimo  gesture,  "we're  not  befuddling  a  jury.  Our 
business  is  to  get  the  law  interpreted  in  the  interest  of  our 
clients ;  and  it  isn't  once  in  a  thousand  times  that  our  client 
is  the  public.  Bob  knew  what  he  wanted,  and  he  chose  his 
profession  with  his  eyes  open.  He  was  as  wise  as  you  and  I 
that  if  a  lawyer  puts  in  any  time  on  social  reforms  people 
in  the  know  either  call  it  an  advertising  plunge  or  wonder 
what  interest  pays  his  fees.  A  minister  may  do  things  that 
get  him  rated  as  a  fool,  but  that's  supposed  to  be  his  job,  and 
there's  a  presumption  of  sincerity  in  his  favor." 

"Suppose  he  is  sincere?"  fretted  Barclay,  "a  minister's  bus- 
iness sense  isn't  expected  to  go  beyond  touching  the  railroads 
for  cut  rates,  and  collecting  easy  money  for  wedding  fees. 
He  never  gets  a  hearing  with  practical  men  when  anything 
serious  is  up." 

"That  depends  on  the  minister,"  Lyon  calmly  contra- 
dicted. "Before  we  are  very  far  into  the  light  that's  brew- 
ing in  Chicago,  the  w^hole  town  will  be  calling  on  Bob  Halleck 
and  one  or  two  other  ministers  of  his  stripe,  with  two  or 
three  women,  to  get  things  out  of  the  hole  your  'practical' 
men  have  dug.  Professionally  I  can  keep  my  countenance 
and  reel  off  all  the  old  stuff  about  the  superior  sagacity  of  bus- 
iness men ;  but  personally,  if  I  was  gunning  for  owls  I'd  ask 
no  better  hunting  ground  than  a  directors'  meeting." 

"Then  you  pick  Bob  for  a  hawk?"  cynically  interpreted 
Barclay. 

"For  the  kind  of  politics  we're  up  against,  yes,  and  the  old 
.style  business  man  is  as  blind  as  a  tenderloin  policeman.  I 
know  lots  of  them  that  call  it  practical  to  make  the  wall  as 
high  and  as  thick  as  they  can  between  themselves  and  their 
help,  and  to  order  a  wage-cut,  or  a  raise  of  prices  simply  be- 
cause they  have  the  power.  They  can't  see  beyond  the  bet- 
ter looking  balance  sheet  tonight  to  the  bad  day-after-tomor- 
row. Bob  Halleck  wouldn't  get  ch&sty  over  that  sort  of 
monkeying  with  human  nature." 

"Human  nature!"  grimaced  Barclay.  "Yes,  Bob  took  the 
thirty-third  degree  in  that  order  when  he  married  I" 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


"The  {oust  to  the  Queen  nii,u:lit  as  well  come  in  at  this 
point,"  suavelv  )>r()j)Oso(l  Lyon.  "Woman!  (Jod  Mess  her! 
We  believi'  in  lur  forever,  in  spite  of  all  the  women  I" 

They  exehan^ed  worldly-wise  looks  over  the  rims  of  their 
gliJiises,  and  Barclay  vouchsafed  the  sage  reflection : — 

"The  sentiment  doe^^  you  credit,  my  young  friend,  but  it 
doe.^n't  let  Hob  out.'' 

"What  do  you  know  about  his  domestic  affairs?"  demanded 
Lyon  with  a  touch  of  anxiety. 

"1  know  enough,  for  a  salute  of  'Ltold-you-so's'  if  poetic 
justice  ever  comes  to  her  own.  From  the  time  we  squawked 
at  one  another  out  of  our  perambulators,  Dora  Doyle  made 
trouble  for  Bob  and  me,  until  we  went  to  prep  school.  ^Ve 
didn't  set  her  to  words,  but  if  we  had  known  how  to  phrase 
our  state  of  mind  we  should  have  put  her  down  simply  as  a 
necessary  evil.  Ridgewood  was  a  handful  of  cottages  then, 
and  we  three  were  the  only  children  1  remember.  A\^e  seemed 
to  be  fixed  in  the  order  of  thing.s,  and  had  to  make  the  best 
of  it.  Dora  was  the  sort  of  croSvS  between  turtle-dove  and 
tiger-cat  that  lives  to  kill  joy  and  monopolize  privilege.  Ten 
minutes  of  her  pathetic  racket  would  make  us  feel  so  mean 
she  could  bully  us  the  rest  of  the  day.  We  didn't  see  much 
of  her  for  the  next  dozen  years,  but  when  Bob  came  back 
from  Germany,  and  was  waiting  for  a  call,  Dora  was  just 
settling  her  father's  estate  and  managing  her  mother.  There 
was  little  left  but  debts  and  the  incompatible  likenesses  of 
the  two  women.  Dora  knew  that  Bob's  mother  had  left  him 
rich,  but  if  she  hadn't  he  was  a  man.  His  place  in  nature  was 
to  furni.-^h  a  kingdom  for  feminine  tyranny.  The  pathetic 
wa«5  mobilized  and — I'm  giving  you  my  theory  of  course 
— Ijefore  Bob  could  run  up  the  not-in-control  .signal  their 
names  were  on  a  marriage  license.  I  felt  a  lot  more  like  a 
pall-bearer  when  I  had  to  pose  as  best  man  at  that  wedding. 
I  should  be  a  cad  to  talk  like  this  to  anybody  else,  but  I'll 
be  damned  if  I  believe  we're  doing  right  by  Bob  not  to  call 
things  by  their  right  names.  It's  a  tragedy,  or  I'm  no  mind 
reader.  Nine  years  with  Dora  Doyle  and  Bob  Halleck  is 
either  a  clam  or  a  slumbering  volcano.  I've  never  come  to 
the  point  before,  but  I've  always  wondered  when  you'd  begin 
to  fill  out  the  plot." 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


''If  you  knew  Chicago,  'twouldn't  seem  very  strange," 
oriented  Lyon,  with  uneasiness  about  passing  from  externals 
to  the  human  factors.  "Unless  men  are  in  the  same  line, 
living  on  the  north  and  south  sides  might  as  well  be  New 
York  and  Boston.  When  one  has  business  in  the  centre,  and 
the  other  hasn't,  they  meet  only  by  appointment.  Bob  be- 
longs to  one  of  the  down  town  clubs  that  I  do,  but  he  seldom 
comes  there.  My  father  is  treasurer  of  his  church,  and  I'm 
down  for  my  part  at  the  finance  end  of  everything  Bob  says 
is  all  right,  but  that's  about  as  near  as  we  get  to  each  other. 
We  have  a  'phone  talk  every  few  days.  I  have  probably  not 
been  in  his  house  more  than  three  or  four  times,  and  his  \\dfe 
was  not  always  there.  As  a  bachelor  I'm  not  very  well 
placed  to  entertain  a  minister  and  his  wife ;  and  to  tell  the 
truth  she  has  handed  the  ice  rather  freely  whenever  I  have 
made  the  attempt.  That  didn't  strike  me  as  particularly  to 
her  discredit.  If  she  was  not  for  me,  she  was  clearly  within 
her  rights;  and  anyway  I  was  too  busy  to  chew  the  rag.  But 
it's  like  having  money  in  the  bank  to  know  Bob  is  within 
reach.  Come  to  think  of  it,  I'm  afraid  I've  been  letting  him 
accumulate  too  long  without  drawing  the  interest." 

"If  I  lived  within  as  easy  observing  distance  as  you  do," 
prognosticated  Barclay,  "I  should  take  time  enough  from 
commercial  law  to  follow  one  first-class  case  in  alienism. 
Tolstoi  and  Zola  never  had  better  material.  A  woman  with 
the  soul  of  a  siphon,  and  the  cunning  to  work  her  weakness 
the  harder,  the  less  she  ought  to  win ;  this  woman  with  a  life- 
lien  on  a  man  that's  sheer  strength  and  conscience — there's 
a  situation  to  turn  the  best  man's  program  upside  down. 
Talk  about  your  social  problems !  Here's  a  social  problem  all 
by  itself.  What  can  you  say  for  a  world  that  sacrifices  such 
a  man  to  a  woman  of  her  stamp?  In  a  moment  of  freak  gen- 
erosity he  promises  to  love  and  cherish  her.  If  it  had  been 
a  contract  to  deliver  a  load  of  coal,  it  could  be  vacated  in  the 
nearest  court,  on  the  ground  that  no  equivalent  could  be 
rendered;  but  men  are  cheaper  than  coal.  The  most  she 
ever  did  or  can  deserve  of  him  is  long  distance  charity,  with- 
out further  benefit  of  femininity.  We  rule  that  her  claim  to 
control  and  occupy  is  good,  no  matter  if  it  licenses  the  worst 
in  her  and  handicaps  the  best  in  him." 

"I'm  not  quite  on  to  your  curves  yet,  Ray; — and  Lyon's 
uncertainty  was  genuine.    "What  are  you  getting  at,  reform 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


of  the  niarriauo  institution  in  ^oncral.  or  a  rescno  expedition 
for  Boh  in  particnlar?"' 

*'Sup|iose  wo  coniproiniso  and  call  it  weather  prediction. 
Here's  an  inipossil^le  sitnation.  A  woman  who  loves  herself 
i>idy.  and  with  a  eankery  little  love  that  is  jealons  even  of  an 
idea,  if  it  refers  away  fn^n  liorself.  She's  l)ill('tted  on  a  man 
who  wants  to  sj)end  his  life  makinu"  the  world  hetter.  Not  a 
solitary  tliinc;  ean  he  nndertake.  from  having  a  home  with 
that  spirit  in  it  to  winning  business  and  poHtics  over  to  his 
view,  that  isn't  harder  simply  because  she's  his  wife.  Some- 
tliing's  got  to  give  way.  Which  is  stronger,  he  or  the  sit- 
uation?'"' 

"Taking  your  estimate  of  ministers  in  general,  along  with 
your  theory  of  Bob's  matrimonial  flunk  in  particular,  it  looks 
like  an  ea.sy  guess." 

"That's  all  right,  but  I  wasn't  on  oath  in  those  sections  of 
my  deposition.  Besides,  if  a  good  man  couldn't  make  an  ass 
of  himself  once  in  a  lifetime  without  loss  of  rating,  any  one 
left  outside  the  fool  class  would  argue  a  broken  down  detec- 
tive system.  Bob  is  bound  to  realize  his  situation  sooner  or 
later.  He's  got  to  choose  between  carrying  out  his  ideal  and 
settling  down  as  a  caterer  to  his  wife's  perversities.  If  it  was 
oidy  a  case  of  his  whims  against  hers,  it  would  be  the  old 
story  of  our  play  days.  She'd  w^n  every  time.  But  when 
it  comes  to  a  straight  show-down  between  one  shallow  head 
and  empty  heart  and  the  whole  range  of  ideals  that  Bob  be- 
lieves in  to  improve  the  world,  it's  another  proposition.  What 
right  has  he  to  let  her  hold  him  back  from  making  the  most 
of  himself?  So  long  as  it's  merely  a  matter  of  carrying 
through  a  bad  job,  at  the  cost  of  his  own  comfort  and  happi- 
ness, why  he'll  be  the  same  old  dead  game  sport  to  the  end; 
but  if  he  once  decides  that  he's  being  worked  for  a  breach  of 
trust,  if  he  faces  the  immorality  of  squandering  a  leader  of 
many  men  on  demand  of  one  hopelessly  petty  woman,  if  he 
sees  himself  as  a  pitiable  type  of  defaulter,  if  he  realizes  that 
he  is  surrendering  a  mission  to  a  superstition,  the  social  pro- 
prieties will  be  due  for  a  shake-up  that  will  make  his  saloon 
and  slum  ventures  look  prudish." 

"You  wouldn't  survive  the  disappointment  if  the  catas- 
trophe failed  to  connect?" 

"Most  likely  not.  You  see,  Dora  was  practically  the  only 
girl  I  ever  knew.     One  of  the  reasons  why  I  shall  probably 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


never  marry,  is  that  she  is  a  fixed  idea  in  my  mind  as  a  clue 
to  every  woman  I  meet.  At  any  rate,  if  the  boy  is  father  to 
the  man,  it's  a  good  gamble  that  Dora  Doyle  was  mother  to 
the  woman  that's  Bob  Halleck's  wife." 

''There's  such  a  thing  as  change  of  character?" 

"Yes,  and  then  there  isn't.  Kingfishers  don't  grow  up 
homing  pigeons." 

"But  after  all,"  ruled  Lyon,  "your  case  has  no  standing  in 
court.  You  have  produced  no  corpus  delicti.  Bob  shows  no 
signs  of  distress.  He  is  making  good  all  along  the  line.  So 
far  as  the  evidence  goes,  if  there  were  Dora  Doyles  enough  to 
go  'round  they  might  make  men  of  all  the  ministers." 

"I'll  admit  the  case  isn't  ready  for  trial,  but  I've  freed  my 
mind,  and  gone  on  record.  Cause  and  effect  may  be  off  duty 
for  a  while,  but  if  they  are  still  earning  wages  you'll  some- 
time remember  what  I've  said." 

"It  may  all  mean  something,"  Lyon  admitted  hypothetic- 
ally,  "but  it  doesn't  appeal  to  me.  My  habits  have  given 
me  the  feeling  that  business  and  politics  furnish  the  only 
actual  troubles.  To  help  us  forget  them,  family  scandals  are 
invented,  to  be  looked  at  over  the  footlights.  They  are  no 
more  real  to  my  mind  than  Niobe's  tears." 

"Such  simplicity  I  have  not  found,  no  not  in  Flatbush! 
You've  got  it  precisely  reversed.  The  serious  things  in  life 
are  not  business  and  politics.  These  trifles  are  only  the 
games  we  play  to  offset  the  private  woes.  Personal  relations 
are  our  heaven  and  hell.  We've  contrived  an  intermediate 
state,  but  it's  a  doubtful  success.  The  essence  of  life  is  the 
give  and  take  of  sympathy  between  man  and  man." 

"That  sounds  like  the  real  thing,"  endorsed  Lyon,  "but  it's 
just  the  reason  why  it  seems  to  me  all  a  fiction  that  people 
who  belong  together  can  go  back  on  one  another.  In  busi- 
ness or  politics,  where  men  are  mere  counters,  I'm  prepared 
for  it.  I  have  never  come  in  contact  with  treachery  in  real 
life  between  members  of  the  same  family.  I  can  think  of  it 
only  as  part  of  the  make-up  of  imitation  people." 

"Then  Chicago  parents  ought  to  send  their  daughters  to 
law  offices  instead  of  finishing  schools." 

"With  judicious  selection  of  the  offices  the  daughters  would 
be  first-class  risks.  But  on  the  material  point,  I  can't  imagine 
Bob  Halleck's  wife,  whoever  she  were,  clogging  him  in  such  a 
way  that  he  would  count  her  an  enemy.    However  selfish  or 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


stupid  slio  niiuhl  have  boon  at  tlio  start,  lio  would  l»o  lil)oral 
ami  sane  cnoujih  to  pull  hor  out  of  herself  and  ^ear  her  to  his 
interests." 

"Then  you  think  the  trees  have  sap  enough  to  supply  the 
surroundings  with  climate?" 

"Well.  I've  always  had  the  feeling  that  one  fairly  poised 
mind  ought  to  have  common  sense  enough  for  two." 

"Before  this  night's  memories  get  dimmed,"  blustered 
Barclay,  "I  swear  I'll  write  a  Willie  in  Wonderland.  It's 
just  the  other  way.  A  level  headed  man  can  stand  all  sorts 
of  passive  stupidity,  and  he  can  make  a  patient  stagger  at 
carrying  it  on  his  back,  but  if  it  gets  domineering  it's  like  a 
toothache.  One  can't  be  oneself  with  it.  It's  fight  to  a  finish, 
one  way  or  the  other." 

"To  sum  up  evidence  and  argument,"  contested  Lyon,  "it's 
this, — You  have  a  theory  that  the  moon  is  inhabited ;  there- 
fore that  sort  of  folks  can  have  no  use  for  one  another.  If 
that's  the  grade  of  reasoning  you  sell  as  well  as  give  away,  my 
first  duty  when  I  get  home  will  be  to  recommend  a  change  of 
eastern  advisers." 

"My  last  act  under  the  existing  arrangements,"  notified 
Barclay,  "will  be  to  render  my  bill  for  dental  surgery  on  be- 
lated wisdom  teeth.  'Twas  more  of  an  operation  than  I  bar- 
gained for.  If  I  had  suspected  your  innocence,  I  should  have 
left  it  undisturbed.  You  might  have  gone  back  to  your  Chi- 
cago Eden  without  a  doubt  that  it's  all  apple-blo.ssoms  and 
bowers  of  bliss  with  no  trace  of  a  serpent.  But  the  mischief 
is  afoot.  Your  mind  ha.s  been  poisoned.  I  suppose  a  suffi- 
ciently sophisticated  suggestion  might  have  served  in  place  of 
a  crime  to  inoculate  the  Marble  Faun  wdth  a  conscience.  Any 
way,  your  eyes  are  open  now.  Bob  is  a  problem  play  in  real 
life.  You  can  probably  do  nothing  more  than  watch  it  for 
a  while,  but  the  time  may  come  when  you'll  be  drawn  for  a 
speaking  part." 

"Meanwhile  it  would  relieve  the  tension,"  Lyon  finically 
observed,  "to  know  whether  I'm  liable  for  oculists'  or  dentists' 
rates." 

"Slight  overproduction  of  aliases  and  alibis,  I'll  allow," 
nodded  Barclay,  after  checking  up  the  connection,  "but  any- 
wav  all  professions  except  ours  charge  what  the  traffic  will 
bear." 

24 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


It  was  Lyon's  turn  to  treat  the  subject  confidentially.  For 
a  few  moments  the  two  men  blew  smoke  rings  in  silence,  and 
then  in  a  half  apologetic  tone  Lyon  resumed  the  discussion : — 

"I  might  as  well  own  up  that  since  we  left  the  law  school 
I've  divided  my  time  between  getting  the  office  into  my  head 
in  the  morning  and  pitching  it  completely  enough  out  to 
sleep  at  night.  'Till  I  had  to  quit  last  year  and  take  an  ocean 
trip,  my  interests  were  either  pure  business  or  any  counter 
irritant  that  would  help  me  forget  shop.  That  meant  that  I 
took  nothing  seriously  except  my  own  work.  To  start  with, 
it  was  a  good  sample  of  the  method  we  call  'practical,'  to  put 
a  boy  fresh  from  his  books  where  an  old  head  was  needed.  I 
stood  fire  all  right;  but  the  strain  told,  and  left  me  rather 
numb  for  anything  else,  even  amusements.  I've  been  think- 
ing lately  that  I've  learned  my  lesson  well  enough  to  handle 
the  professional  end  with  a  little  lighter  touch.  What  you 
have  been  saying  falls  in  pretty  well  with  a  suspicion  that 
began  to  creep  in  with  that  notion.  I  mistrust  that  business 
induces  absent  mindedness  about  the  rest  of  the  world.  Since 
I've  begun  to  take  notice  I  feel  like  one  of  the  babes  in  the 
wood.  Except  in  corporation  affairs  I  can't  place  things  as 
well  as  I  could  ten  years  ago.  Of  course,  we  unlearn  in  that 
time  a  lot  of  things  that  are  not  so ;  but  beyond  that,  people 
outside  of  my  line  seem  to  have  got  away  from  me.  They're 
a  little  hazy  and  mythical.  I  have  a  sneaking  feeling  that 
either  they  are  not  real  or  I'm  not.  I  make  it  out  to  be  a  de- 
mand for  a  change  of  ratio  between  business  and  life." 

"Gives  a  fellow  a  sort  of  eaves-dropping-at-a-confessional 
feeling,"  undertoned  Barclay,  "to  hear  you  go  off  in  this 
fashion.  When  you  swing  over  on  such  a  tack  I'm  not  skip- 
per enough  to  follow.  You  might  call  it  an  air-ship  chauffeur 
stunt.  I'm  not  up  to  the  part.  I'm  with  you  though  that  you 
can  afford  to  look  about  a  bit  and  watch  other  people." 

Then  after  another  silence,  Barclay  broke  into  a  sort  of 
apostrophe: — "Things  are  doing  in  the  world  that  nobody 
understands.  Whether  they  will  go  better  when  we  do  un- 
derstand is  another  story;  but  people  who  like  to  see  the 
wheels  go  'round  are  missing  the  time  of  their  lives  in  not 
prying  more  beyond  their  own  circuit.  I've  always  had  a 
notion  that  the  old  chaps  who  tried  to  get  a  theory  to  explain 
life  were  picking  up  threads  that  would  some  day  lead  to 
something.    None  of  them  have  arrived,  so  far  as  I  know,  but 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


why  shouldn't  thoy?  What  is  it  nil  about?  After  a  few 
hillion  inoiv  of  us  havo  served  our  term  and  made  our  record, 
there  ouijht  to  he  material  for  working  conclusions.  As  far 
as  I  can  see,  fight  and  love  arc  the  two  great  commandments 
with  promise.  Life  is  automatic  adjustment  of  their  propor- 
tions. It  takes  a  lot  of  fight  along  a  lot  of  lines  to  get  the 
conditions  for  a  little  love.  Up  to  date,  the  problem  for  every- 
body is  not  whether  to  fight,  but  how.  If  you  won't  hold  me 
up  for  what  I  said  a  minute  ago,  I'll  let  you  in  on  my  theory 
that  fighting  is  the  business  of  life.  It's  the  biggest  part  of 
what  we're  all  doing.  We  keep  up  a  pious  pother  to  disguise 
it,  but  the  fight's  the  thing,  wherever  there's  any  going 
ahead.  AVhen  we  are  wise  enough  to  be  genuine  we  shall 
stop  trying  to  conceal  it.  After  we've  fought  it  out,  love  may 
have  its  chance.  Love  is  the  end,  not  the  means.  If  any  one 
can  swipe  a  little  of  it  as  he  goes  along,  he's  that  much  ahead 
of  the  game;  but  the  reason  why  we've  made  such  a  mess  of 
life  is  that  peojile  have  too  soon  got  sick  or  ashamed  of  fight- 
ing. They  have  made  a  virtue  of  loving  while  it's  only  a 
luxury.  That's  the  philosophy  underneath  my  interest  in 
Bob's  case.  He  ought  to  be  fighting  that  woman,  not  trying 
to  love  her." 

Lyon  was  less  able  than  usual  to  make  out  how^  much  Bar- 
clay meant  of  what  he  said.  With  much  the  same  uncer- 
tainty about  himself  he  answered : — 

"I've  heard  the  theory  that  food  and  sex  are  the  two  forces 
that  keep  the  world  moving,  and  perhaps  your  'fight  and 
love'  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  It  sounds  like  that  crazy 
(lerman  Nietzsche,  with  his  'superman.'  The  philosophers 
may  sometime  get  a  clue  that  will  place  these  things,  but  they 
all  seem  to  be  guessing  at  present.  Edgerly,  w^ho  married  my 
sister  you  know,  is  professor  of  ethics  in  our  University.  His 
hobby  is  that  the  world  so  far  has  been  a  go-as-you-please 
race,  and  that  the  next  step  is  to  turn  it  into  a  scientific  pro- 
gram. We've  got  to  make  up  our  minds  what  it's  worth  w^hile 
to  aim  at.  and  then  resolve  ourselves  into  a  cooperative  world's 
bureau  of  social  invention.  His  prescription  is  'Take  account 
of  cause  and  efi'ect  in  the  w^hole  range  of  life,  select  your  scale 
of  purposes,  and  adopt  ways  and  means  accordingly.'  Your 
'fight  it  out  and  love  if  you  get  a  chance'  has  the  call  on  the 
score  of  feasibility.  It's  a  religion  most  of  us  could  fairly 
well  live  down  to ;  but  I  wouldn't  name  it  as  a  winner  in  the 

26 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


long  run.  A  fight  is  litre  stopping  a  fire  by  blowing  up  build- 
ings. It's  a  confession  that  we've  lost  our  grip,  and  it's  recov- 
ery by  means  as  destructive  as  the  original  evil.  There's  some- 
thing wrong  when  we  can't  find  any  way  out  but  a  fight. 
This  tussle  we're  up  against  in  Chicago  has  got  to  be  fought 
out  of  course.  It's  a  simple  case  of  must.  I  expect  to  fight 
as  though  I'd  rather  do  it  than  eat.  At  the  same  time,  the 
closer  we  come  to  it  the  more  I'm  haunted  by  the  feeling  that 
the  whole  business  is  a  hell  broth.  As  to  the  specific  issues 
that  are  bringing  the  crash,  we  are  absolutely  right,  and  our 
position  against  the  unions  is  strictly  legal.  I  would  rather 
fight  till  I'm  beaten  and  forced  into  submission  to  superior 
strength,  than  yield  another  hair.  All  the  same,  I  don't  be- 
lieve there  should  be  any  fight.  We've  got  a  false  start  so 
long  as  anybody  has  to  be  forced  to  surrender.  All  in  all, 
things  as  we  find  them  are  a  very  respectable  argument  for 
resurrecting  the  devil  hypothesis." 

"When  we  get  on  a  little  further  in  penology,"  Barclay 
prophesied  disgustedly,  ''there'll  be  a  Class  A  in  the  bribe 
takers'  penitentiary  for  your  brand  of  trusties.  Your  price 
is  a  pious  phrase.  You  pretend  you  don't  believe  in  fighting, 
but  you  fight.  I  confess  I  do  believe  in  fighting,  because  I 
fight.  I  size  up  the  world  by  the  same  measure.  What  we  do 
is  what  we  believe,  and  we  won't  begin  to  do  business  on  a 
cash  basis  till  what  we  believe  matches  what  we  pretend.  We 
have  to  fight  for  what  we  get  in  this  world.  Ergo,  Have  at! 
Give  and  take !  Fight  'till  the  greater  and  less  of  forces  have 
settled  themselves.  Then  you  have  your  world  to  stay.  It's 
simply  gravitation  in  all  dimensions,  with  the  disturbing 
factors  of  hysterics  and  hypocrisy  thrown  out." 

"Edgerly  would  say  you  haven't  sufficiently  generalized 
your  induction,"  objected  Lyon.  "It's  his  academic  way  of 
welshing  when  he  hasn't  an  answer  handy.  I  can't  stop  you, 
but  I  think  you're  off.  You  are  simply  blurting  out  what  we 
are  all  doing;  at  least  what  we're  doing  first  and  foremost. 
You  jump  farther  than  I  can  to  the  conclusion  that  this  tells 
the  whole  story.  I  can't  submit  a  theory  in  rebuttal.  I 
haven't  thought  beyond  my  sentimental  challenge  of  appear- 
ances. I  have  a  feeling  though  that  our  whole  social  system 
is  assailable  at  the  same  point  where  I  spot  the  weakness  of 
your  theory.  The  world  is  not  made  up  of  things  but  of 
people.    Things  gravitate,  people  climb.    Things  have  a  force 

27 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROBLEM 


of  thoir  own,  Init  they  tjct  their  vahies  from  peo|)le.  Things 
are  at  most  the  housing.  People  are  the  hfe  inside.  I've 
never  thouizht  it  out  in  this  shape  before,  but  to  match  your 
theory  I'll  spring  the  claim  that  the  main  thread  of  the  story 
is  the  evolution  of  an  ascending  scale  of  wants  in  people's 
minds.  Life  is  a  game  of  living  chess  working  out  a  more 
complicated  scheme  than  any  player  could  have  had  in 
advance." 

''Repeat  Edgerly  again,"  gasped  Barclay,  "while  T  think!" 

"Xo,  don't  think.     Let's  move  for  a  stay  of  proceedings 

till  next  time.     You  New  Yorkers  mistake  sunrise  for  the 

edge  of  the  evening  previous.     I'm  down  for  a  heavy  day's 

work  before  my  train  leaves  tomorrow." 

''Well,  light  one  more  any  way,  to  help  us  back  to  earth." 

Barclay  and  Lyon  were  fair  specimens  of  that  frank  type  of 
pagan  upon  which  the  destinies  of  modern  Christianity  de- 
pend. Their  breeding  might  have  been  a  theorem  in  eugen- 
ics. They  had  learned  the  traditional  world  in  schools  that 
still  seemed  to  them  the  best  of  their  kind.  By  grace  of  fam- 
ily connections  they  had  learned  the  business  world,  through 
rapid  promotion  to  responsibility  that  initiated  them  into 
commercial  relations  on  a  large  scale.  They  had  learned 
themselves,  they  had  formed  their  own  individuality,  they 
had  settled  upon  the  valuations  that  decided  their  personal 
conduct,  without  conscious  prejudice  or  embarrassment  from 
any  system  or  standard  or  code.  They  w^ould  have  resented 
any  imputation  that  they  had  not  become  themselves  with 
perfect  freedom  from  outside  influence.  The  truth  was 
that  social  moulds  had  merely  eased  pressure  on  them  at  the 
point  where  their  world  was  tolerant  of  variation.  They  w^ere 
accordingly  of  the  time  and  of  the  social  stratum  that  pro- 
duced them,  with  the  faintest  marks  of  sub-classification.  If 
hard  pushed,  they  would  have  harked  back  to  conventional 
beliefs  amounting  to  a  moral  creed,  and  a  wholesome  one. 
Life  to  them  meant  doing,  however,  not  defining.  Their  pro- 
fessional experience  had  come  at  them  like  troops  of  raiders. 
It  had  been  a  succession  of  challenges  to  repel  attacks,  to  plan 
counter-attacks,  to  seize  strategic  positions,  to  follow  up  ad- 
vantages. Their  occupation  had  prescribed  a  rigid  habit  of 
mind.  It  had  become  second  nature  to  choose  distinct  aims 
to  be  reached,  and  to  rate  everything  at  what  it  was  worth 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROBLEM 


as  means  to  those  ends.  All  their  thinking  and  feeling  was 
in  terms  of  some  concrete  value-unit,  avowed  or  implied.  If 
anything  was  worth  while,  it  was  because  it  had  a  use  in  get- 
ting some  result  that  they  wanted.  If  they  ever  listened  to 
talk  of  ideal  values,  it  was  in  moments  of  relaxation  that 
didn't  count.  They  supposed  themselves  superior  to  illusions. 
In  fact,  their  mental  background  was  chiefly  illusion,  while 
their  experience  had  explored  a  little  segment  of  reality. 
They  did  not  knowingly  think  by  rule.  They  believed  that 
the  successful  shall  inherit  the  earth.  If  called  upon  to  state 
their  idea  of  success,  more  power  in  the  market  would  be  the 
chief  item  in  the  schedule.  Yet  they  would  insist  on  a  blank 
reservation.  If  pushed  farther  they  would  say  that  success 
is  control  of  the  market,  plus.  Each  of  them  had  his  moments 
of  irritation  because  he  could  not  put  a  clear  meaning  into 
that  plus.  Each  of  them  occasionally  wondered  whether  fail- 
ure to  run  down  that  plus  might  not  turn  out  to  be  leaving 
some  vital  point  in  his  scheme  of  life  unprotected.  Yet 
these  misgivings  were  wholly  off-duty  episodes.  Expansion  of 
trade  and  firmer  grip  on  the  conditions  of  production,  were 
the  chief  landmarks  within  their  horizon  of  strenuous  action. 
All  other  good  things  seemed  to  them  so  absolutely  depend- 
ent upon  business  that  it  cost  no  moral  struggle  to  concen- 
trate on  commercial  success.  Although  there  was  no  rec- 
ognized conflict,  still  the  ghost  of  the  plus  might  put  in  an 
appearance  at  any  moment,  either  as  jester  or  spectre,  to  cast 
suspicion  on  the  completeness  of  the  policy.  The  apparition 
had  never  been  detained  for  examination.  It  was  a  fugitive 
conceit,  passing  with  other  fancies. 

Certain  anemic  sorts  of  their  contemporaries  flattered  their 
own  self-esteem  by  labeling  such  as  Barclay  and  Lyon  "mate- 
rialists." Their  mean  aims  and  sordid  purposes  were  sup- 
posed by  those  same  critics  to  mark  the  low  estate  of  society. 
If  the  two  men  should  plead  to  the  indictment  their  answer 
would  be: — "Our  kind  are  the  only  respectable  idealists. 
What's  the  use  of  dreaming  about  the  impossible,  or  deify- 
ing the  unattainable?  It's  a  man's  work  to  find  the  doable 
and  do  it." 


29 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   MEDIATOR 


1 


1 


THE    MEDIATOR 


II 

THE   MEDIATOR 

"Action,  and  happiness  in  action,  and  richer  life  for  every- 
body as  the  result  of  action,  were  the  literal  terms  of  his 
theology." 

IN  the  four  or  five  days  just  past  Robert  Halleck  had  been 
like  the  bearer  of  a  flag  of  truce  between  two  armies  ready 
for  battle.  Old  residents  regarded  the  outlook  as  more  threat- 
ening than  at  any  time  since  the  Haymarket  affair.  The 
form  which  the  impending  conflict  had  assumed  during  the 
last  twenty-four  hours  had  taken  Halleck  completely  by  sur- 
prise. He  had  for  some  time  believed  that  a  stronger  labor 
combination  was  organizing  than  capital  in  this  country  had 
ever  encountered.  He  was  nevertheless  entirely  unprepared 
for  the  latest  phases  of  its  plan  of  campaign.  All  his  attempts 
at  conciliation  had  been  wasted  on  details  which  now  ap- 
peared to  have  been  immaterial.  He  had  not  supposed  it  pos- 
sible to  unite  organized  labor  in  the  United  States  in  support 
of  a  position  that  would  raise  a  radical  question  with  capi- 
talism. Labor  conflicts  had  always  before  seemed  to  him 
mere  trials  of  strength  over  division  of  spoils.  They  did  little 
if  anything  either  to  promote  the  spirit  of  justice  or  to  make 
its  letter  more  clear.  They  merely  measured  the  relative 
fighting  force  of  opposing  claimants.  The  conflict  now  at 
hand  would  mark  a  new  departure  and  possibly  open  an 
epoch. 

Both  camps  rated  Halleck  as  their  friend.  He  had  vol- 
unteered as  an  informal  mediator,  and  each  had  accepted 
his  good  offices.  Both  sides  confided  to  him  their  views  of 
the  claims  in  dispute,  but  neither  went  so  far  as  to  tell  him 
much  more  of  its  plans  than  was  given  to  the  public.  In- 
stead of  showing  results,  the  last  few  hours  had  revealed  to 
him  that  his  efforts  had  simply  helped  his  friends  in  the  labor 
party  to  gain  time  for  more  effective  preparation  against  his 
friends  the  capitalists.  The  quarrels  over  details  had  merely 
masked  manceuvers  that  were  establishing  bases  for  a  fierce 
confiict  of  principle.  Halleck  was  convinced  of  three  points : 
first,  the  cause  of  the  unions  was  just;  second,  the  strike  was 
wrong ;  third,  peace  was  impossible. 

33 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MEDIATOR 


The  faces  of  the  two  thousand  ])eo])lc  to  wliom  he  must 
speak  the  next  morning  began  to  sha[)e  themselves  in  Ilal- 
leck's  imagination.  They  all  knew  the  signs  of  the  coming 
storm.  Whenever  he  j^reached  they  expected  him  to  speak  for 
the  day  and  the  honr.  They  knew  it  was  not  like  him  to 
pnt  them  off  with  ancient  history,  or  with  abstract  theology, 
or  with  moral  generalities,  when  they  were  interested  in  get- 
ting at  the  heart  of  a  ])ractical  qnestion. 

Ilalleck  was  aware  that  this  reputation  was  both  his  strength 
and  his  weakness.  It  made  his  opportunity  and  increased 
his  dithculty.  He  never  allowed  himself  to  forget  that  he 
Avas  trying  to  hold  the  attention  of  a  type  of  people  between 
those  who  ignore  a  preacher's  appeals  altogether,  and  those 
who  want  from  him  a  "thus  saith  the  Lord."  Even  the 
hearers  who  had  been  attracted  by  his  method  were  enough 
like  the  average  to  want  a  dictum  that  would  settle  the  right 
and  wrong  in  specific  cases,  and  show  how  the  settlement 
might  be  enforced.  They  were  not  beyond  suspecting  sharp 
practice  if  they  were  told  that  there  was  truth  and  error  on 
both  sides.  They  were  in  danger  of  thinking  it  an  evasion 
of  the  issue  to  trace  the  case  in  question  back  to  fundamentals. 
They  shared  the  common  impulse  to  flout  religion  as  a  moral 
guide  unless  it  offers  instant  relief  of  acute  conditions. 

Halleck  was  no  writer  of  ethical  essays.  He  did  not  be- 
lieve in  the  pedagogue  in  the  pulpit.  If  there  had  been  times 
when  the  clergyman  was  the  only  person  in  the  parish  who 
was  educated  and  could  educate,  those  times  were  no  longer 
in  an  American  city.  When  he  preached,  he  took  for  granted 
all  the  agencies  for  po])ular  instruction.  He  a.ssumed  that 
his  part  was  not  to  teach  but  to  persuade  and  lead.  He  was 
a  hard  student,  along  lines  which  he  believed  to  be  closest  to 
human  needs;  but  he  studied  by  system,  not  to  furnish  his 
next  discourse.  His  sermons  never  smelled  of  books.  His 
ideal  was  to  know  life  .so  Avell  that  he  could  interpret  it  to  his 
neighbors  in  a  way  to  convince  them  of  the  direction  their 
conduct  ought  to  take.  He  did  not  ]iut  himself  in  special 
training  for  each  next  encounter  with  his  congregation.  He 
kept  to  his  program  of  study,  and  thinking,  and  mixing  with 
real  people.  Saturday  evening  and  Sunday  morning  were 
reserved  for  suiting  a  message  to  the  occasion.  He  mentally 
interviewed  the  persons  likely  to  make  up  his  audience,  and 
the  groups  which  some  of  them  would  represent.     lie  asked 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MEDIATOR 


himself  "What  is  the  ghmpse  into  hfe  that  will  most  help 
these  people  at  this  moment?"  The  answer  always  came  from 
the  problem  which  he  had  found  some  of  them  tackling,  or 
from  some  moral  phase  of  an  immediate  public  interest. 
Then  he  reflected  whether  the  Bible  contained  any  direct 
teaching  on  the  subject.  His  mother's  ideas  had  been  formed 
before  the  Bible  went  out  of  fashion,  and  she  had  taught  him 
to  memorize  at  least  a  verse  a  day  almost  from  the  time  he 
began  to  talk.  At  her  death,  when  he  was  fourteen  years  old, 
he  had  most  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Psalms,  and  large 
sections  of  the  prophetic  books  in  a  collection  of  indelible 
mental  records.  He  was  rarely  embarrassed  long  in  select- 
ing from  these  his  biblical  precedent.  He  used  it  not  as  a 
proof  but  as  an  illustration. 

A  chess  player  might  have  said  that  he  always  used  the 
same  pulpit  opening.  It  was  after  this  style: — "The  prin- 
ciple of  life  that  I  shall  talk  about  this  morning  came  to  view 
in  such  and  such  an  incident  recorded  in  the  Bible ;  or  it  was 
stated  in  these  words ;  the  surroundings  of  the  passage  show 
that  the  point  was  in  brief  this ;  now  things  are  not  true  be- 
cause they  are  in  the  Bible,  they  are  in  the  Bible  be- 
cause they  are  true;  I  ask  you,  therefore,  to  notice  how  this 
principle  that  was  discovered  so  long  ago  applies  in  our  own 
lives." 

As  a  rule  Halleck  had  used  his  reference  to  the  Bible  and 
dismissed  it  in  less  than  five  minutes.  He  often  said  that  one 
reason  why  the  pulpit  at  present  attracts  so  few  people  is 
stupid  pulpit  psychology.  Most  preachers  treat  the  Bible 
like  a  collection  of  antiquities  in  which  people  must  be  bored 
into  taking  an  interest.  He  believed  he  could  best  use  the 
Bible  as  he  would  a  stereopticon,  to  direct  attention  away  from 
the  instrument  itself  to  the  views  that  it  projects. 

Robert  Halleck  had  outgrown  the  first  flush  of  his  youth- 
ful enthusiasms,  but  what  he  had  lost  in  ardor  he  had  gained 
in  decision.  He  made  out  the  plot  of  human  life  to  be  steady 
progress  from  crude  beginnings  into  conditions  making  for 
improvement  beyond  any  known  limit.  In  his  version  life 
was  a  winnowing  process,  in  which  the  deposit  is  types  of  indi- 
viduals and  types  of  dealings  between  individuals  that  on  the 
whole  form  an  ascending  scale.  He  could  not  be  dragged  into 
discussing  the  scholastic  question  whether  a  better  world  could 
be  imagined.    He  frankly  confessed  that  he  had  no  way  to  ex- 

35 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MEDIATOR 


plain  some  of  the  commonplaces  of  life  so  as  to  prove  that  the 
scliemo  which  involves  them  is  the  best  that  might  have  been, 
lie  iliil  not  hesitate  to  say  that  he  could  not  understand  how 
some  of  the  incidents  of  the  connnon  lot  could  occur,  either 
with  Ciod's  consent  or  without  it.  He  neither  doubted  the  ex- 
istence of  Ciod  nor  tried  to  conceal  his  feeling  that  God  might 
have  done  some  things  better.  Yet  he  did  not  rush  into  the 
paltry  blunder  of  assuming  that  his  mental  failure  settled 
any  thing,  lie  did  not  attempt  to  ignore  the  inexplicable.  He 
recognized  it  without  a})ology,  but  he  steadied  himself  with 
the  equally  candid  belief  that  if  he  knew  more  he  w^ould  un- 
derstand more,  and  if  he  knew  all  he  would  understand  all. 

Whatever  might  be  conceivable  in  the  way  of  a  superior 
universe,  Ilalleck  was  committed  to  w^ork  at  his  best  in  the 
world  as  it  is.  So  far  as  he  could  see,  human  progress  has  to 
be  paid  for  at  a  tremendous  cost  of  pain  and  sorrow  and 
waste.  Good  men  die  when  their  friends  think  they  are 
most  needed,  and  good  efforts  are  defeated  when  the  times 
seem  just  ripe  for  their  success.  The  individuals  have  been 
rare  in  history  who  could  clearly  prove  a  margin  on  the  profit 
side  of  their  life  account.  Halleck  conceded  all  this,  yet  it 
had  no  visible  tendency  to  make  him  treat  it  as  the  final 
word.  "With  all  its  discounts,  life  seemed  to  him  a  paying 
investment.  He  did  not  worry  about  partition  of  the  divi- 
dends. To  him  the  final  inducement  to  work  was  his  belief 
that  someone,  sometime,  would  profit  by  the  work.  Whether 
a  metaphysic  could  be  invented  to  justify  it  or  not,  the  method 
of  life  seemed  to  him  quite  plain.  His  summary  of  it  was,  not 
to  let  our  circumstances  master  us,  but  to  master  them; 
whether  an  experience  brings  pleasure  or  pain,  not  to  be  con- 
trolled by  it,  but  to  control  it.  The  practical  application  of 
his  philosophy  was  that  it  is  stupid  to  fret  over  the  more  we 
might  do,  or  might  enjoy,  if  our  circumstances  were  differ- 
ent. Our  problem  is  to  organize  precisely  the  experience 
which  we  meet  into  purpose  and  action  of  a  better  quality 
than  surrender  to  our  surroimdings.  We  shall  amount  to 
the  most  in  the  end,  for  ourselves  and  for  the  scheme  of 
things  in  which  every  man  gets  his  meaning,  if  w-e  stoutly 
refuse  to  be  counted  out,  and  keep  on  using  such  strength  as 
we  have,  in  the  direction  of  the  best  good  w^e  can  see. 

It  was  not  interest  in  abstract  speculation  that  led  Halleck 
to  his  creed.     For  his  own  sake  it  would  have  been  enough 

36 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MEDIATOR 


that  he  found  work  to  do.  The  task  would  have  been  its 
own  creed.  As  a  minister,  however,  he  had  to  hear  the  con- 
fidences of  all  sorts  of  people.  He  found  his  problems  in 
their  difficulties.  He  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  the 
traditional  forms  of  faith  were  moulded  to  fit  a  mental  atti- 
tude which  he  seldom  met.  The  kind  of  first  aid  to  the  dis- 
tressed that  he  was  most  often  called  upon  to  render  created  a 
demand  for  a  version  of  life  which  appealed  to  the  every-day 
man's  sense  of  reality.  There  must  be  some  common  prem- 
ises if  there  were  to  be  common  conclusions. 

Yet  he  seemed  to  reach  his  least  common  denominator  of 
life  by  accident  rather  than  calculation.  He  did  not  delib- 
erately set  out  to  construct  a  theory.  As  he  widened  his  ac- 
quaintance with  plain  people,  and  as  he  realized  some  of  the 
differences  between  what  they  thought  and  what  they  were 
supposed  to  think,  he  became  aware  that  a  process  of  simpli- 
fication was  going  on  in  his  own  mind.  Figures  of  speech 
were  yielding  up  a  literal  meaning.  Particulars  that  had 
ranked  as  fixed  terms  in  the  equation  of  truth  became  alge- 
braic symbols  with  varying  value.  Special  formulas  that  he 
had  held  as  fundamental  merged  into  more  general  expres- 
sions of  deeper  meanings.  His  feelings  quite  failed  to  keep 
pace  with  his  judgment.  If  he  had  been  given  to  introspec- 
tion, he  would  long  ago  have  discovered  a  break  between  the 
mental  habits  which  he  inherited  from  the  past  and  the  per- 
ceptions which  he  was  deriving  from  the  present.  He  had 
observed  that  his  thoughts  were  fast  giving  up  life  as  a  ritual, 
and  were  accepting  it  as  a  coherent  system  of  cause  and  effect. 
Yet  he  was  taken  by  surprise  when  he  found  that  he  had 
stopped  trying  to  make  out  a  case  for  the  moral  order  of  the 
universe  in  terms  of  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  individuals. 

In  the  first  year  of  his  pastorate  Halleck  was  one  day  try- 
ing to  use  the  idea  of  divine  help  to  encourage  a  man  whose 
affairs  had  all  gone  wrong.  "No!  No!"  was  the  response, 
"don't  tantalize  me  with  that.  Your  errand-boy  conception 
of  the  Almighty  goes  to  smash  against  the  facts."  The  young 
minister  did  not  welcome  the  conclusion,  nor  accept  it  out  of 
hand.  It  impeached  all  his  theological  training.  He  tried 
to  avoid  it,  like  a  lost  child  afraid  to  look  into  the  dark  for  its 
mother.  He  felt  that  it  would  rob  both  God  and  men  of  real 
personality. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MEDIATOR 


Ho  was  novor  puilty  of  fin;htin^  for  a  theory  simply  be- 
cause lie  had  oiu'o  hehl  it;  yet  he  refused  to  surrender  on 
demand  to  what  seemed  to  him  a  stone-erusher  version  of 
hfe.  He  had  no  stomach  for  reducing  the  spiritual  factors 
to  mechanical  forces.  The  substantial  issue  in  his  mind  was 
between  order  and  no  order  as  our  final  version  of  the  moral 
world.  He  found  himself  re]>udiating  a  supposed  i)rinciple  of 
order  under  which  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  persons  made 
each  into  a  world  by  himself.  He  took  refuge  in  an  idea  of 
individuality  which  pictured  every  person  not  a.s  complete 
in  himself,  but  as  made  up  of  all  the  interests  which  link  him 
with  the  destinies  of  all  other  persons. 

Halleck's  terms  of  peace  with  his  owm  doubts  left  a  soul  in 
men  and  a  sovereignty  in  God.  They  provided  for  what 
seemed  to  him  a  more  real  unity  between  God  and  men  than 
his  earlier  notions  had  contained.  The  self  that  sets  itself 
up  as  an  end  to  itself  chooses  isolation  in  the  moral  world, 
and  deserves  it.  The  self  that  finds  itvself  in  falling  into 
harmony  with  the  larger  scheme  of  things,  cannot  be  isolated 
and  cannot  be  disappointed.  Its  life  becomes  incidental,  to 
be  sure,  rather  than  final.  At  the  same  time  it  becomes  real 
rather  than  fanciful.  The  larger  life  comes  to  its  own  at 
the  very  moment  when  the  lesser  life  meets  defeat.  "Let 
me  die  with  my  face  toward  the  enemy"  is  the  universal 
symbol  of  the  successful  life.  Its  measure  is  not  its  individual 
career,  but  the  sweep  of  the  movement  to  Avhich  it  con- 
tributes. 

In  Halleck's  hands  this  philosophy  was  not  mysticism. 
There  were  timid  souls  in  his  church  who  even  suspected  it 
of  materialism.  It  lacked  all  the  vague  otherworldly  tone 
by  which  they  were  most  suggestible.  It  did  not  borrow 
enough  of  the  stock  phrases  of  religion  to  assure  them  that  it 
was  Christian.  Its  working  precepts  were:  Serve  the  best 
good  you  can  understand ;  Don't  shirk  your  share ;  Do  your 
part;  Look  for  your  compensations  not  in  the  enjoyments 
that  end  with  yourself,  but  in  the  on-going  of  the  greater 
good.  Halleck  appraised  religion  chiefly  as  a  means  of  fit- 
ting people  into  the  economy  of  life.  As  mere  sentiment,  he 
cla.ssed  it  frankly  with  the  other  aesthetic  enjoyments. 
Action  and  happiness  in  action,  and  richer  life  for  every- 
body as  the  result  of  action,  were  the  literal  terms  of  his 


theology. 


38 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MEDIATOR 


His  scheme  of  action  left  little  room  for  bewailing  the 
evil  in  the  world.  It  was  altogether  occupied  with  promoting 
the  good.  He  did  not  flinch  from  his  duty  with  the  types  of 
people  who  are  tenacious  of  the  luxury  of  sorrow,  but  he  al- 
ways made  a  botch  of  his  efforts  with  them.  His  discordant 
hopefulness  disturbed  their  glorification  of  grief,  and  his  per- 
sistent prescription  of  work  as  a  panacea  often  affected 
them  as  verging  upon  insult.  He  believed  there  would  be 
ample  time  for  futile  bemoanings  if  he  should  outlive  strength 
to  lend  a  hand.  Until  senility  vetoed  effort,  he  preferred  to 
put  his  regrets  for  the  evils  of  the  world  into  the  form  of 
work  to  remove  the  conditions  that  produce  the  evils.  If  he 
should  die  before  reaching  the  age  of  fruitless  regrets,  he  felt 
quite  content  to  stand  on  his  record. 

The  professional  reformers  looked  askance  at  Halleck. 
They  could  understand  neither  his  temper  nor  his  philoso- 
phy. He  notoriously  neglected  the  inspiration  of  things  out 
of  joint.  Rueful  contemplation  of  social  wrongs  gave  him 
no  more  joy  than  brooding  over  the  sores  he  had  seen  in  his 
clinic  would  afford  to  a  healthy  physician.  Evils  suggested 
to  him  not  morbid  reflection,  but  first  thorough  investigation 
of  their  source,  and  then  radical  treatment.  The  world's 
surplus  of  health  and  strength,  physical  and  moral,  over  sick- 
ness and  weakness  of  all  sorts,  impressed  him  more  than  the 
whole  catalogue  of  casual  ills.  Gain,  growth,  healing,  re- 
covery, seemed  to  him  the  cardinal  traits  of  life. 

Halleck  did  not  imagine  that  it  ought  to  be  as  easy  for  the 
average  man  as  for  himself  to  believe  that  the  world  is  sound 
at  the  core.  He  was  all  the  time  in  touch  with  people  who 
needed  more  nerve  every  day  to  keep  their  courage  than  his 
whole  experience  had  required.  He  often  wondered  whether 
in  their  place  he  could  be  as  brave.  At  all  events,  he  was 
convinced  of  his  mission  to  use  his  brighter  outlook  for  the 
benefit  of  people  whose  position  was  less  secure. 

Never  had  Halleck  felt  himself  closer  than  this  evening 
to  the  limits  of  his  resources.  He  had  no  misgivings  about 
the  permanent  course  of  events,  but  the  present  and  his  share 
in  it  were  in  the  balance.  He  doubted  his  ability  to  affect 
the  attitude  of  a  single  partisan,  and  still  more  his  power  to 
get  fundamental  factors  recognized.  He  was  not  ambitious 
to  project  himself  personally  into  the  coming  strife,  but  the 
conflict,  as  it  had  betrayed  itself  in  the  last  few  hours,  was 

39 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MEDIATOR 


boiiiul  to  put  on  trial  not  iiKTcly  economics  and  politics  but 
religion.  \\'1umi  hostile  liinuan  interests  threaten  war  on  a 
large  scale,  and  make  anarchy  of  social  order,  must  religion 
be  a  mute  or  worse?  Can  it  contribute  anything  thai  will 
count  toward  peace?  Is  religion  a  social  force,  or  merely  a 
fashion  in  stage  costumes,  or  the  movable  scenery  of  the  play? 
Is  religion  the  world's  sanity,  or  simply  a  diversion  of  its  mor- 
bid moods,  to  be  dismissed  when  work  must  be  done? 

The  one  question  under  these  different  forms  had  not,  at 
this  late  day.  overtaken  ITalleck  unawares.  lie  had  answered 
it  for  himself  before  he  decided  on  his  vocation.  The  answer 
had  dictated  his  decision.  It  became  his  controlling  pur- 
pose to  do  what  he  could  to  justify  the  answer,  and  to  broaden 
the  scope  of  its  influence. 

But  at  this  moment  Chicago  was  in  a  condition  that 
warned  every  wise  man  to  guard  his  words  as  he  would  sparks 
in  a  magazine.  Thousands  of  men  were  ready  to  fight  over 
claims  wdiich  admitted  no  compromise.  Each  side  repre- 
sented an  economic  class.  The  interests  of  each  class  directly 
challenged  those  of  the  other.  There  was  no  standard  of  ad- 
justment that  both  would  recognize.  So  long  as  each  party 
maintained  its  position,  local  business  would  be  blockaded, 
and  the  effects  might  paralyze  the  industries  of  the  country. 
Sooner  or  later  someone  must  yield.  As  the  hostile  interests 
recognized  no  moral  tribunal  competent  to  adjust  the  unal- 
terable minimum  of  their  differences,  the  only  alternative 
must  be  a  test  of  force.  But  industrial  war  of  the  magnitude 
now  threatened  must  soon  convince  every  serious  mind  that 
neutrality  is  unthinkable. 

Halleck  set  himself  the  task  of  analyzing  the  situation  as 
he  had  seen  it  developing  during  the  week.  Ruling  out 
prejudice  on  both  sides,  and  neglecting  lesser  details,  what 
were  the  essentials  at  stake?  He  did  not  feel  sure  that  he 
could  consistently  play  the  role  of  a  visitor  from  Mars,  or  of 
a  historian  tracing  the  record  a  thousand  years  hence,  but  he 
honestly  made  the  attempt. 

He  had  soon  reduced  the  confusion  to  this  form : — On  the 
one  hand  are  employers  demanding  "Must  I  submit  to  out- 
side dictation?  Have  I  not  a  right  to  run  my  business  as  I 
please?"  The  answer  must  be,  "Yes,  surely,  provided  your 
business  ever  can  be  yours  in  a  sense  that  warrants  you  in 
fighting  for  it  at  the  expense  of  your  partnership  with  your 

40 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MEDIATOR 


employees,  and  your  trusteeship  to  the  public.  On  the 
other  hand  are  employees  with  their  contention,  "Have  we 
not  a  right  to  organize,  and  does  not  that  right  carry  with 
it  the  right  to  use  the  power  of  organization?"  Again  the 
answer  must  be,  "Yes,  surely,  provided  your  organization  is 
not  for  purposes,  or  is  not  operated  according  to  policies, 
which  convert  your  partnership  with  your  employers,  and 
your  social  trusteeship,  into  piracy  upon  the  rights  of  others 
who  do  not  choose  to  join  your  organization,  or  still  others 
who  depend  upon  you  for  your  share  of  the  world's  work." 

But  great  combinations  of  fighting  force,  representing 
these  opposite  claims,  were  on  the  brink  of  war  to  force  each 
other  into  submission.  What  could  be  said  in  the  name  of 
religion  about  such  an  issue?  By  an  hour's  hard  thinking 
the  ground  had  been  cleared  for  the  second  stage  in  the  process 
of  preparing  the  message.  Two  hours  later  Halleck  had  de- 
cided on  the  main  lines  of  his  appeal  for  a  Christian  attitude 
toward  the  fighting  issue. 

Halleck  had  a  volume  of  mediaeval  prayers,  which  had 
often  been  his  recourse  against  unmanageable  states  of  mind. 
They  were  voices  out  of  a  world  with  which  he  had  hardly 
more  than  one  impulse  in  common.  In  spite  of  mawkish  de- 
tails, he  found  in  them  genuine  aspiration  to  reach  a  spiritual 
rendering  of  life  that  would  silence  immediate  discords.  For 
thirty  minutes  Halleck  tried  the  tonic  of  Basil,  and  Augus- 
tine, and  Anselm,  and  Bernard,  and  Gregory,  and  Thomas  a 
Kempis.  It  did  not  give  him  quite  the  same  kind  of  satis- 
faction they  seemed  to  desire,  but  it  calmed  and  steadied  him. 
It  slacked  his  mind's  grip  on  the  evening's  problem.  It  sent 
him  to  sleep  with  a  glow  of  assurance  that  whether  his  own 
work  counted  much  or  little,  he  was  enlisted  in  a  winning 
cause. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  CRISIS 


THE    CRISIS 


III 

THE   CRISIS 

"It  would  surrender  the  fundamental  principle  that  every 
business  must  be  run  by  its  owners,  not  by  outsiders." 


AS  Lyon  entered  the  "Twentieth  Century"  Saturday  after- 
noon, the  Conductor  handed  him  a  bunch  of  letters  and 
telegrams.  He  ordered  a  table  for  his  compartment,  and 
sent  for  the  stenographer.  Before  the  train  had  passed  West 
Point,  answers  to  the  letters  were  ready  for  his  signature. 
Among  the  telegrams  sent  out  at  Albany  was  an  order  to  his 
chauffeur  to  have  his  car  at  the  Van  Buren  St.  station  at  8 : 55 
the  next  morning.  Another  read : — 
''Mr.  Walther  Kissinger, 

4608  Woodlawn  Ave., 

Chicago. 
Meet  me  at  office  tomorrow  (Sunday)  morning  at  nine. 

LOGANLYON." 

Kissinger  was  precisely  on  time,  but  he  found  Lyon  al- 
ready at  his  desk.  Their  greeting  was  that  of  men  whose 
working  relations  were  mutually  satisfactory,  without  sugges- 
tion of  further  intimacy. 

"It's  rough  to  call  you  down  here  Sunday  morning,  Mr. 
Kissinger,  but  we'll  get  through  in  time  to  go  to  church,  and 
that's  my  cue  today  at  any  rate.  It  will  help  settle  my  mind 
into  the  proper  spirit  if  you  tell  me  the  worst  up  to  date ;  and 
I  can  talk  a  little  more  to  the  point  with  my  father  this  aft- 
ernoon if  the  facts  are  in  the  back  of  my  head  during  the 
service." 

"We  know  nothing  of  importance  beyond  what  I  wired, 
except  that  late  last  night  I  got  a  pretty  straight  tip  about 
the  proposition  the  officers  will  ask  the  unions  to  endorse 
today." 

"Is  it  the  general  strike?" 

"No,  at  the  start  it's  just  the  opposite.  Whether  the  lead- 
ers have  had  this  move  in  mind  all  along,  or  whether  the  new 
plan  is  an  afterthought,  I  can't  say.  The  last  w^ord,  however, 
is  for  a  complete  change  of  front.  Nothing  that  has  been  in 
dispute  for  the  last  two  months  is  to  be  pressed,  for  a  while 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    CRISIS 


at  nny  rate,  by  any  of  the  unions.  The  scheme  is  now  to 
make  a  test  case  with  us.  They're  not  going  to  claim  a  griev- 
ance against  anybody  else,  and  other  people  will  be  drawn  in 
()nly  by  helj)ing  us.  They  are  going  to  make  an  issue  with 
the  Avery  Comi)any  alone.  The  demand  will  be  that  the 
company  shall  give  a  place  on  the  Board  of  Directors  to  a 
representative  elected  by  the  help." 

''Have  they  lost  their  minds?"  gasf)ed  Lyon. 

"Some  of  them  say  they  have  just  found  their  minds." 

**What  do  they  suppose  they  mean?" 

"Well,  you  know  Graham  is  touted  as  the  smartest  labor 
leader  yet,  and " 

"He's  several  different  kinds  of  a  scoundrel,  but  it  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  a  smart  one  is  in  the  combination." 

"At  any  rate  he  has  hacked  off  a  brand  new  chip  for  the 
shoulder  of  labor." 

"I  should  say  he  had !  It's  a  plain  case  of  'whom  the  gods 
will  destroy.'  On  its  face  every  labor  fight  ever  heard  of  be- 
fore has  been  a  question  of  terms.  It  didn't  strike  at  the  un- 
derpinnings of  things,  except  indirectly.  This  proposition 
means  dynamiting  the  foundations  of  business,  and  turning 
the  ruins  over  to  lunatics  as  receivers.  Does  the  fellow  ac- 
tually think  he  can  get  any  one  to  stand  wuth  him  on  that  sort 
of  a  bluff?  If  he  is  fit  to  be  at  large  he  can't  imagine  for  a 
minute  that  business  at  this  late  day  can  be  reorganized  on 
Quixotic  principles.  "What's  his  game,  and  how  far  does  he 
mean  to  play  it?" 

For  a  moment  Kissinger  did  not  answer.  He  seemed  to  be 
balancing  something  that  diverted  his  thoughts  from  Lyon's 
outburst.  His  features  had  been  set  in  correctly  emotionless 
business  expression.  Now  a  glimmer  of  light  played  under 
the  surface,  with  good  promise  of  flashing  out  in  a  frankly 
human  symptom. 

Kissinger's  family  had  intended  him  for  a  place  in  the 
foreign  office.  He  had  served  his  term  in  the  army,  and  had 
pa.ssed  his  first  law  examinations,  when  he  had  come  to  this 
country  as  a  subordinate  in  a  special  commission.  Before  he 
had  been  in  the  United  States  a  month  his  whole  outlook  was 
changed.  Nothing  appeared  to  be  within  easier  reach  than 
wealth.  In  two  or  three  months  more  he  had  decided  to  re- 
main in  America.  Diplomacy  had  come  to  look  like  a  too 
long  road  to  success,  while  business  promised  to  be  a  short  cut. 

46 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    CRISIS 


The  Avery  Company  was  just  beginning  to  develop  its  foreign 
trade,  and  could  use  a  German  correspondent.  It  offered  Kis- 
singer a  position,  with  prospects  of  promotion.  Without 
much  hesitation  he  accepted.  His  accurate  and  methodical 
habits  proved  invaluable,  but  he  had  not  the  aggressive  stuff 
that  makes  a  manager.  In  a  short  time  he  was  the  confiden- 
tial secretary  of  the  President  of  the  company,  but  that  was 
his  limit.  For  years  he  had  done  duty  at  his  post  with  the 
loyalty  of  a  soldier.  He  had  long  ago  given  up  ideas  of  inde- 
pendent business  ventures.  So  far  as  his  employers  knew,  he 
liad  no  other  ambition  than  to  serve  the  company  for  all  he 
was  worth. 

Kissinger  was  essentially  not  a  man  of  affairs,  he  was  a  seer 
of  visions.  He  belonged  to  the  race  of  Klopstock,  and  Schiller, 
and  Arndt,  and  Uhland  and  Korner.  A  century  earlier  he 
would  have  been  among  those  futile  youths  who  first  fought 
at  Leipzig  and  Waterloo  to  free  their  country  from  Napoleon, 
and  then  formed  the  Burschenschaften  to  free  it  from  itself. 
His  prattle  of  "Ueberzeugungen"  would  have  been  as  pious  as 
theirs,  and  he  would  have  had  no  doubt  that  lighting  the 
Wartburg  with  bonfires  of  musty  books  was  progressive  states- 
manship. He  lived  the  double  life  of  routine  and  sentiment. 
The  problem  of  making  the  two  consistent  had  never  fairly 
presented  itself,  nor  had  it  occurred  to  him  that  neither  of 
them  was  whole  so  long  as  they  were  separate. 

Practically  Kissinger  was  an  obedient  and  virtually  auto- 
matic cog  in  the  conventional  machinery  of  society.  In  the  of- 
fice his  devotion  to  the  company  was  as  unreserved  as  though 
the  thought  of  economic  evils  had  never  troubled  his  imag- 
ination. Out  of  business  hours  he  w^as  never  quite  himself 
unless  he  was  dreaming  dreams  of  reforming  the  world.  He 
read  the  class  of  literature,  and  he  cultivated  the  type  of  ac- 
quaintances, that  wasted  no  attention  upon  feasible  improve- 
ments, but  devoted  themselves  to  theories  of  an  ideal  society. 
Instead  of  stimulating  actual  invention,  this  speculation 
tended  to  make  him  timid  and  perfunctory.  He  knew  no 
ways  and  means  but  those  of  his  every-day  program.  These 
got  results.  Any  interference  with  them  would  have  scan- 
dalized his  sense  of  fitness.  He  was  not  aware  of  it,  but  his 
philosophy  actually  left  room  for  only  two  alternatives ;  either 
to  be  content  with  the  established  order  of  things,  or  to  expect 
a  miraculous  transformation  of  the  real  world  into  the  ideal. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    CRISIS 


Of  force:'  capable  of  modifying  social  institutions  he  had  no 
cloar-cut  conception. 

Hut  there  was  another  and  more  pathetic  contradiction  be- 
tween the  two  phases  of  Kissinger.  Though  he  did  not  achnit 
it  to  himself,  he  loathed  the  whole  economic  system,  and  all 
his  affections  responded  to  incoherent  suggestions  of  a  better 
condition. 

He  had  spared  himself  the  outright  confession,  but  in  fact 
he  was  haunted  by  a  feeling  of  degradation.  He  was  not 
heroic,  he  was  merely  impressionable.  He  was  sure  the  world 
was  ruled  by  the  coarser  motives  instead  of  the  finer,  and  he 
revolted  in  spirit  against  his  acquiescence.  If  he  had  consented 
to  his  sympathies  rather  than  his  prudence,  he  would  long  ago 
have  rebelled  against  the  whole  social  order.  He  would  have 
denounced  it  as  a  scheme  of  cumulative  inequality ;  as  cynical 
selfishness  masquerading  in  a  soiled  domino  of  democracy; 
and  he  would  have  declared  his  individual  independence. 
Since  the  luxury  of  that  sort  of  genuineness  w^as  beyond  his 
means,  he  simply  allowed  his  practical  and  his  speculative 
lives  to  develop  each  according  to  its  bent,  under  an  inviolable 
tradition  of  non-intercourse  and  non-intervention. 

For  an  instant  the  crisis  that  the  two  men  were  facing  al- 
most surprised  Kissinger  into  recognizing  the  antagonism  be- 
tween his  two  selves.  The  unions  that  would  present  their 
ultimatum  next  morning  were  simply  his  theoretical  secession 
incarnated.  They  were  merely  putting  into  action  at  a  sin- 
gle point  the  sentiments  that  he  cherished  toward  economic 
institutions  in  the  abstract.  A  stronger  man  would  have  ac- 
cepted the  challenge  to  renounce  one  side  of  himself  or  the 
other.  Kissinger  could  neither  reconcile  his  two  selves  nor 
renounce  either.  He  could  merely  reserve  them  for  favorable 
occasions.  His  theories  had  never  of  their  own  motion  so 
far  \dolated  good  form  as  to  interrupt  the  cour.se  of  business. 
Now  that  the  actions  of  others  had  forced  them  into  the  day's 
w^ork,  he  had  a  guilty  feeling  that  they  deserved  arrest  for  dis- 
orderly conduct.  Utopia  seemed  as  much  out  of  place  in  the 
Avery  offices,  as  the  company  itself  would  be  in  Utopia. 

As  an  item  in  an  actual  business  proposition,  the  conflict 
between  routine  and  affection  w^as  too  unequal  to  last.  Before 
the  pause  was  long  enough  for  Lyon  to  notice  it,  Kissinger 
continued : — 

"I  have  seen  Graham  only  two  or  three  times,  and  have 

48 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    CRISIS 


very  little  to  go  on  except  what  his  friends  say.  They  make 
him  look  like  a  hard  man  to  fight.  We  shall  go  wrong  though 
if  we  size  him  up  as  a  rascal.  In  the  first  place,  he  has  a  good 
deal  more  money  than  he  will  ever  spend  on  himself,  and  he 
doesn't  seem  to  care  for  more." 

"Trust  the  people  behind  him  to  see  that  he  soon  has  less." 

"If  they  are  in  for  that  they  are  taking  long  chances.  At 
present  he  is  putting  all  his  surplus  into  developing  his  min- 
ing properties  in  Idaho  on  a  cooperative  basis,  and  they  all 
know  it.  He  tells  the  men  around  him  he  is  willing  to  pay  his 
own  salary  and  expenses,  and  a  fair  amount,  like  anybody 
else,  to  the  common  fund ;  but  beyond  that  it's  got  to  be  share 
and  share  alike  in  hard  work  for  the  cause,  and  plenty  of  it. 
They  believe  him.  When  his  father  died  Graham  had  a 
chance  to  hire  superintendents  and  spend  his  dividends  with- 
out going  near  his  property.  Instead  of  that  he  dropped  law 
and  studied  mining  engineering  three  years.  In  his  vacations 
he  worked  with  the  men.  When  he  was  through  studying  he 
settled  in  the  camp,  and  told  the  men  his  policy  was  not  only 
to  increase  the  output,  but  to  find  a  way  for  every  man  in  the 
camp  to  get  out  of  the  business  all  he  put  in." 

"What  does  organizing  strikes  in  Chicago  have  to  do  with 
that  program?" 

"It  didn't  take  him  long  to  find  that  competitors  wouldn't 
let  him  alone.  He  had  to  come  East  to  deal  with  other  con- 
cerns, and  he  says  the  more  he  has  to  do  with  financiers  the 
better  he  likes  working  men.  Ho  claims  that  the  long  end  of 
distribution  belongs  to  the  man  who  works  with  his  hands, 
and  that  wits  should  take  a  larger  part  of  their  pay  in  the 
comfort  of  their  job.  His  theory  is  that  the  interests  of  work- 
ers are  not  taken  care  of  because  they  are  not  organized,  and 
that  the  best  of  every  economic  deal  goes  to  the  men  that  float 
stocks  instead  of  those  that  do  the  work." 

"The  old  story !  Every  raw  recruit  to  socialism  thinks  he 
has  invented  a  brand  new  idea,  and  the  rear  rank  in  the  awk- 
ward squad  expects  to  sweep  vested  interests  off  the  earth." 

Quarterly  reports  were  so  much  more  real  to  Kissinger  than 
social  reforms,  and  days  of  reckoning  with  the  directors  had 
so  long  been  the  chief  signs  of  his  zodiac,  that  he  had  nothing 
to  say  for  applied  utopianism  that  would  not  have  sounded 
foolish  to  himself  in  a  session  with  Lyon.  He  merely  made 
.semi-conscious  notes  of  exceptions,  and  stuck  to  his  facts. 

49 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    CRISIS 


''T  hnvc  not  fouiul  out  llo^v  lont!;  (Graham  has  been  working 
on  this  sc'lioino.  or  how  far  he  is  h)okin^  ahead ;  hut  as  1  figure 
it  out.  this  move  against  us  doesn't  l)ulk  very  hu'ge  in  his  eal- 
euhitions,  win  or  lose.  It  is  merely  the  opening  gun  of  a  big 
political  campaign.  He  reckons  that  there's  enough  working- 
men's  class-consciousness  awake  in  the  country  to  cai)ture  the 
government  in  most  of  the  states  and  at  Washington.  It  is 
only  waiting  for  the  right  sort  of  issue  to  rally  on.  He  doesn't 
pick  the  Avery  Company  aa  better  or  worse  than  other  corpo- 
rations. We  are  simply  in  the  open  and  easy  to  attack.  We 
really  haven't  anything  that  he  would  take  as  a  gift.  It 
isn't  victory  he's  after  but  an  issue.  Any  old  question  will  do, 
so  long  as  it  makes  capital  and  labor  line  u\)  on  opjiosite  sides. 
He  wouldn't  give  a  picayune  to  get  one  of  his  men  into  our 
Board.  Indeed  the  worst  jolt  we  could  give  him  would  be  to 
accept  his  terms  on  the  spot,  and  tell  him  to  name  his  man. 
What  he  is  after  is  not  directors  but  recognition  of  an  idea. 
His  strategy  is  to  concentrate  the  working  class  vote  on  the 
principle  of  labor  representation  in  control  of  cori)orations." 

"In  other  words,  if  the  thing  worked  out,  nothing  but  labor 
would  be  represented." 

"That's  about  the  size  of  it.  Labor  and  capital  are  to 
change  places.    Labor  will  dictate  and  capital  must  submit." 

"Suppose  we  take  this  view  of  the  movement,  how  much 
more  do  you  get  about  the  fighting  strength  it  can  muster?" 

"There  is  nothing  definite  yet  beyond  their  own  claims. 
We  can't  tell  how  far  they  know  their  strength,  or  take  stock 
in  their  own  estimates.  They  say  they  are  organized  inde- 
pendent of  the  unions  in  half  the  states,  and  will  be  in  the 
rest  as  fast  as  it  is  worth  while.  These  organizations  are  sup- 
posed to  be  strike  supporters.  At  the  right  time  they  will  blos- 
som out  as  political  machines.  They  seem  to  be  officered  pretty 
largely  by  the  union  leaders,  but  take  in  everybody  that 
thinks  he  has  a  grudge  against  capital.  The  funds  are  not 
held  directly  by  the  unions,  and  it  looks  as  though  they  came 
from  a  good  many  sources  that  could  not  be  tapped  for  strictly 
union  purposes.  Our  fight  will  hold  the  attention  of  the 
country,  and  furnish  material  for  a  campaign  of  education 
along  the  lines  of  'smash  the  trusts,'  and  'government  for  the 
people,  not  for  the  corporations.'  In  other  words,  it  is  one 
more  way  of  trying  to  get  the  balance  of  power  for  the  labor 
interests.    The  fight  will  be  narrowed  down  to  the  issue  *law- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    CRISIS 


making  by  the  many  instead  of  the  few.'  It  is  not  hard  to 
show  on  paper  how  the  results  of  two  out  of  the  last  four  presi- 
dential contests  might  have  been  reversed  by  a  little  less  rad- 
ical break  with  economic  prejudice.  Graham's  friends  think 
he  can  unite  the  different  sorts  of  people  who  want  a  new  deal, 
and  they  believe  his  plan  of  operations  will  succeed.  Noth- 
ing is  to  be  said  about  politics  at  the  outset,  but  after  the 
country  is  roused  by  the  labor  fight  the  political  reserve  will 
be  brought  to  the  front.  If  I  am  on  the  right  track,  things 
are  to  be  so  shaped  up  that  the  next  election  will  turn  on  the 
one  question  of  rule  by  the  workers  or  the  capitalists." 

The  two  men  had  been  by  turns  sitting,  standing  and 
pacing  in  zigzags  across  the  office.  The  pantomime  of  jerky 
movement  and  cramped  attitude  fairly  reflected  their  state 
of  mind.  Except  when  he  had  thrown  in  a  remark,  Lyon's 
manner  had  not  shown  whether  he  was  listening  to  Kissinger 
or  following  an  independent  train  of  thought.  As  Kissinger 
stopped  speaking,  Lyon  halted  close  to  him,  and  for  a  few 
seconds  looked  steadily  into  his  eyes;  or  rather  he  seemed 
less  to  be  looking  into  Kissinger's  eyes  than  trying  to  see 
something  through  them.  Then,  with  the  air  of  having  set- 
tled a  question,  he  seated  himself  and  resumed  the  discussion. 
In  sharp  contrast  with  his  usual  habit,  he  spoke  haltingly,  as 
though  he  was  feeling  his  way  from  each  word  to  the  next. 

"Your  theory,  Mr.  Kissinger,  would  explain  several  things 
that  I  see  no  other  way  to  account  for.  I  had  thought  of  it 
before,  but  hadn't  facts  enough  to  test  it.  Whether  it  proves 
to  be  correct  or  not,  I  am  ready  to  adopt  it  for  working  pur- 
poses. But  that  after  all  merely  puts  the  case  before  us.  It 
settles  nothing,  except  that  we  rule  out  the  bluff  idea. 
Whether  the  plan  in  the  large  is  crazy  or  not  is  their  affair. 
We  needn't  resolve  ourselves  into  a  lunacy  commission.  Our 
first  concern  is  that  Graham  can  give  us  a  fight,  and  we  must 
assume  that  he  means  to  do  it.  The  next  thing  is  to  count 
the  cost  and  decide  whether  the  game  is  worth  the  candle. 
Our  grade  of  labor  can't  be  replaced  offhand.  It  might  mean 
a  shut-down  for  months.  That  would  cost  us  at  the  start 
several  million  dollars'  worth  of  contracts,  besides  the  indirect 
consequences.  You  think  we  could  side-track  the  whole 
thing  by  letting  one  of  them  into  our  Board?" 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    CRISIS 


"Sure!  Unless  the  terms  are  ehanged  today,  that  would 
concede  all  they  ask." 

"And  what  then?" 

"Why.  tlh\v  would  have  to  ])iek  out  a  corporation  that  would 
stand  pat." 

"Suppose  every hody  paid  the  price?" 

"Well,  in  that  case  they  would  sooner  or  later  get  around 
to  us  again  with  a  demand  for  two  directors,  and  so  on  till 
they  had  a  majority  everywhere." 

"I  see,  curing  the  morphine  habit  with  more  morphine." 

A  grim  smile  relaxed  the  tense  expression  of  Lyon's  face. 
It  changed  to  a  chuckle,  and  developed  into  a  series  of  com- 
bined laughs  and  whoops  that  blended  ridicule  with  admi- 
ration. 

"It  reminds  me  of  a  gang  of  amateur  counterfeiters,"  he 
gurgled,  "trying  to  bribe  the  United  States  Government.  I 
wonder  if  they'd  be  willing  to  throw  in  a  job  to  any  of  us 
under  the  new  management!" 

Kis.singer's  sen.se  of  humor  was  not  equal  to  the  occasion. 
To  him  both  business  and  social  reform  were  too  serious  for 
levity.  His  mind  was  baffled  by  the  contrast  between  con- 
crete and  ideal  princiijles.  He  did  not  harbor  a  suspicion 
that  questions  were  begged  on  both  sides ;  still  less  could  he 
mdulge  in  irreverence  toward  either;  even  when  they  came 
into  collision.  He  simply  waited  till  Lyon  should  return  to 
a  business  basis. 

Lyon's  change  of  mood  may  have  been  either  cause  or 
effect  of  a  new  grasp  of  the  situation.  At  all  events,  when 
his  serious  tone  returned  the  problem  had  reduced  itself  in 
his  mind  to  very  simple  terms. 

"We  could  in.sure  our  business  for  several  years  at  least 
by  admitting  a  labor  delegate  to  our  Board?" 

"That  is  my  opinion,"  confirmed  Kissinger,  "assuming  of 
cour.se  that  we  could  remove  the  legal  difficulty  of  making  a 
director  of  a  man  who  owns  no  stock  in  the  comp)any." 

Lyon  suppressed  another  spasm  of  levity  and  dryly  re- 
marked:— "I  believe  corporations  have  been  known  to  over- 
come difficulties  of  that  nature  when  it  was  to  their  ad- 
vantage. But  w'ould  there  be  any  difficulty  about  reducing 
a  director  chosen  under  such  circumstances  to  the  value  of  a 
dummy?" 

"I  can't  see  how  he  could  have  any  influence  on  the  busi- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    CRISIS 


ness  whatever,  unless  the  other  directors  chose  to  humor 
him." 

"Precisely!  In  other  words  our  insurance  would  cost  us 
nothing.  Our  tangible  assets  would  not  be  reduced,  and  our 
power  of  independent  management  would  remain  the  same 
ns  before,  but  we  should  be  free  from  labor  disturbances  for 
an  indefinite  period.  Why  isn't  it  a  clear  case  of  getting  a 
whole  lot  for  nothing?" 

"It  would  be  if  it  didn't  violate  business  principles,"  Kis- 
singer answered,  with  the  air  of  a  man  testifying  against  his 
own  interests  under  cross-examination.  Lyon  would  as  soon 
have  suspected  economic  unsoundness  in  a  cash-register  as 
in  Kissinger,  and  the  signs  passed  undetected.  On  the  con- 
trary, Lyon  had  no  doubt  that  he  had  rather  shocked  Kis- 
singer by  seeming  to  dally  with  temptation.  He  went  on 
with  the  aim  of  restoring  the  confidence  of  the  literal-minded 
secretary,  as  well  as  of  clinching  the  conclusion. 

"Now  you  come  to  the  other  side  of  the  ledger,  Mr.  Kis- 
singer. It  would  cost  us  nothing  except  everything.  It 
would  surrender  the  fundamental  principle  that  every  busi- 
ness must  be  run  by  its  owners,  not  by  outsiders.  At  just  the 
time  when  it  is  more  necessary  than  ever  for  all  the  business 
interests  of  the  country  to  stand  together  against  socialism, 
it  would  make  us  silent  partners  of  the  socialists.  There  is 
only  one  alternative,  if  we  propose  to  keep  on  doing  business. 
The  other  thing  would  turn  us  into  pirates.  We  can  afford 
to  go  to  pieces  fighting  for  our  rights,  but  we  can't  afford  to 
succeed  by  making  common  cause  with  anarchy.  If  the 
case  they  put  up  to  us  tomorrow  turns  out  as  we  expect,  there 
will  be  no  room  for  a  difference  of  opinion  on  the  main  ques- 
tion. We  shall  simply  be  up  against  the  problem  of  ways 
and  means  to  force  the  fighting." 

If  Kissinger  had  clearly  imderstood  himself,  his  dilemma 
would  have  been  cruel.  Fortunately  his  dreams  had  never 
shaped  themselves  aggressively  enough  to  dispute  precedence 
with  his  duties.  For  every-day  purposes  the  decision  seemed 
to  him  as  inevitable  as  it  did  to  Lyon.  But  to  the  other 
idealistic  self  that  would  answer  to  his  name  when  he  was 
fairly  free  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  office,  the  logic  was 
utterly  irrelevant.  The  Czar  might  decree  that  there  should 
be  no  more  music  in  his  dominions,  and  the  music  might  have 

53 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    CRISIS 


[o  stoi>.  l>ut  it  would  not  prove  that  tyranny  is  hotter  llinn 
nnisie.  If  we  do  not  know  how  to  nia,ke  husiness  anything 
hilt  husiness,  if  husiness  must  he  a  tyrant,  not  a  servant,  then 
human  ricihts  must  be  devoured  by  business  as  tinder  is  con- 
^umed  hy  thime. 

Kissinger  had  found  no  way  for  the  world  to  go  on  without 
taking  busine,ss  for  granted;  and  so  far  as  ho  oould  see,  busi- 
not-s  prineiples  wore  as  fixed  a.s  the  laws  of  physics.  But 
there  were  all  the  human  emotions  and  sentiments  and  aspira- 
tions. They  made  a  world  of  their  own.  They  demanded 
of  business  that  it  should  take  its  orders  from  them,  and 
build  a  world  which  they  should  occupy.  There  was  inso- 
lence and  sacrilege  in  the  logic  of  business  that  arrogated  to 
itself  the  right  to  own  and  regulate  the  world,  and  to  de- 
nounce and  defame  moral  contestants  of  the  claim  as  mis- 
chief-makers and  disturbers  of  the  peace. 

The  talk  then  turned  to  details  that  must  be  taken  up  the 
next  morning. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  Kissinger  had  progressed 
in  a  couple  of  hours  toward  a  common  center  for  his  two 
selves.  Each  of  them  had  become  more  self-conscious,  but 
the  contrast  was  so  much  more  evident  that  nothing  but  con- 
flict between  them  was  in  prospect.  The  net  result  of  the 
conference  for  his  w^holo  mental  attitude  was  rather  a  con- 
firming of  his  sense  of  helplessness  and  humiliation.  He 
was  nearer  to  distinct  classification  of  himself  as  a  bond  ser- 
vant to  an  inexorable  machine.  He  was  more  aware  that  his 
own  predicament  w^as  despicable.  He  was  rather  more  per- 
suaded that  it  could  not  be  helped.  He  did  not  know  that 
he  was  a  fatalist,  and  he  had  never  called  himself  a  pessimist, 
but  in  the  last  few  minutes  his  view  of  human  destiny  had 
passed  under  a  cloud.  So  far  as  he  could  see,  there  was  no 
pro.spect  of  promoting  the  kind  of  life  his  feelings  demanded. 
From  this  time  on  his  business  fidelity  w^as  likely  to  be  more 
dogged,  but  his  temper  would  be  more  depressed. 

With  Lyon  it  had  not  been  a  question  of  feelings  but  of 
decisions.  BiLsiness  was  to  him  a  fully  charted  sea.  Until 
recently  he  had  been  no  more  disturbed,  by  speculations  about 
what  might  be  possible  if  business  were  on  a  different  basis, 
than  a  Sandy  Hook  pilot  would  be  turned  from  his  course 
by  theories  of  possible  geologic  changes  in  the  Atlantic  coast. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    CRISIS 


Lyon  had  imagination,  and  in  college  he  was  considered  a 
good  deal  of  a  philosopher,  but  he  had  disciplined  himself  in 
dismissing  non-essentials  and  in  confining  himself  strictly  to 
the  point.  Things  took  their  turn,  and  at  times  received 
his  undivided  attention,  which  he  would  have  been  at  a  loss 
to  place  in  a  reasoned  scheme  of  life.  He  was  not  conscious 
of  needing  logical  schemes  beyond  his  business  system,  and 
these  digressions  had  not  put  him  at  odds  with  himself. 
They  were  merely  diversions  from  the  main  current  of  busi- 
ness, and  were  not  to  be  taken  seriously  as  competitors. 

Lyon  had  a  practical  man's  horror  of  uncertainty.  He 
had  been  worried  not  so  much  because  of  the  coming  fight 
as  because  it  was  so  largely  a  fight  in  the  dark.  A  theory  of 
the  campaign  was  a  relief.  Costly  as  the  struggle  was  likely 
to  be,  he  felt  that  the  problem  had  been  simplified,  and  that 
what  remained  was  adjustment  of  details. 

"We  seem  to  have  covered  everything,  and  I  can  talk  to 
my  father  this  afternoon  with  my  eyes  open.  Today's  de- 
velopments may  turn  us  back  to  our  previous  theory,  but  we 
shall  be  prepared  for  either  line  of  action  tomorrow  morning. 
My  auto  is  waiting.  Shall  we  go  over  and  give  Halleck  a 
chance  at  us?" 

"Mrs.  Kissinger  and  Elsie  will  represent  the  family.  I 
can  do  better  at  home." 

"Then  let  Parker  take  you  there  after  he  drops  me." 

As  the  office  door  closed,  Lyon  had  something  like  a  sense 
of  relief  at  leaving  himself  behind  for  a  while.  Kissinger 
felt  a  slight  access  of  animation  in  prospect  of  rejoining 
himself. 


55 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   MISFITS 


THE     MISFITS 


IV 
THE    MISFIT 

"Mrs.  Kissinger  subscribed  in  a  passive  way  to  the  formal 
creed  that  it  is  everybody's  duty  to  be  useful ;  but  she  knew 
of  no  way  in  which  her  own  daughter  could  be  useful 
without  losing  caste." 

IF  Kissinger  was  less  unreal  to  himself  in  his  family  than  in 
the  company's  office,  it  was  because  he  took  more  for 
granted.  He  did  not  probe  his  domestic  situation.  It  did 
not  so  directly  antagonize  his  dreams.  He  had  formed  no 
distinct  images  of  family  life  in  contrast  with  his  own.  There 
had  never  been  appreciable  lack  of  harmony  between  himself 
and  his  wife.  He  was  proud  of  his  daughter,  and  she  was 
always  affectionate  toward  her  parents.  Yet  Kissinger  was 
occasionally  conscious  of  a  forlorn  feeling  that  he  was  not  a 
part  of  the  family.  It  seemed  to  be  less  his  larger  self  than  a 
group  to  which  he  was  welcomed  by  courtesy.  If  he  actually 
belonged  there  it  would  have  had  a  different  tone.  Some- 
thing seemed  to  be  lacking.  In  a  vague  way  he  felt  an  ab- 
sence of  sentimental  factors,  which  might  have  made  his 
home  more  complete.  So  far  as  he  ever  tried  to  account  for  it, 
he  was  inclined  to  rest  with  the  explanation  that  it  was  sim- 
ply the  American  atmosphere.  He  thought  his  wife  would 
probably  have  had  similar  feelings  if  he  had  taken  her  to 
live  in  Germany.  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  he  could 
transform  the  whole  American  environment.  Having  mar- 
ried into  a  foreign  country,  it  was  probably  inevitable  that  he 
should  remain  to  a  certain  extent  a  foreigner  in  his  own 
family. 

Closer  inspection  would  have  raised  the  question  whether 
the  alien  element  in  the  family,  was  Kissinger  or  his  wife. 
If  men  and  women  of  her  parents'  generation  could  have  been 
called  as  experts  upon  the  subject,  they  would  doubtless  have 
expressed  the  uniform  view  that  the  wife's  modification  of 
the  family  was  less  national  than  individaul.  All  that  might 
be  learned  of  her  ancestry  would  tend  to  strengthen  this 
opinion. 

Ellen  Wells  retained  vivid  impressions,  partly  direct  and 
partly  transmitted,  of  the  storm  and  stress  period  following 
the  fire.    Her  father  was  one  of  the  men  who  created  the  new 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     MISFITS 


city.  Any  cntorprisc  that  Enoch  Wells  failed  to  endoD^c 
ranked  in  the  shady  list.  Mrs.  Wells  liad  coino  with  her  hus- 
hand  from  an  Ohio  farm.  She  was  rich  in  all  those  essentials 
that  «:;row  hy  u;raftinu  larger  world  exi)eriences  upon  Scotch- 
Irish  tradition.  Her  education  was  that  of  the  prosperous 
rural  home,  the  country  school,  and  the  Presbyterian  meet- 
ing house.  From  girlhood  she  had  met  occasions  as  they 
came,  doing  her  best  in  trivial  and  important  things  alike, 
never  wasting  s]>eculations  beforehand  about  her  ability,  and 
never  nursing  regrets  over  her  limitations.  When  the  arti- 
ficial distinctions  between  Chicago  peo})le  disappeared  in  the 
flame  and  smoke,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wells  were  among  those  Avho 
at  once  ro.se  to  the  eminence  of  their  qualities.  They  had 
courage,  judgment,  honesty,  public  spirit  and  the  joy  of  work. 
Never  was  charter  patented  to  clearer  nobility  than  was 
unchartered  in  the  generation  of  men  and  women  whose  oidy 
capital  was  their  character,  but  who  wrought  that  character 
in  a  decade  into  the  ])lant  and  the  Vjusiness  and  the  ideals  of 
the  foremost  western  town.  They  never  faltered  till  their 
work  was  done.  Then  they  began  to  betray  to  themselves, 
rather  than  to  each  other  or  to  the  heedless  world,  a  sort  of 
bashfulness  in  the  presence  of  their  own  achievements.  Their 
work  was  greater  than  their  thought.  They  had  been  adapt- 
ing means  to  ends  with  but  the  faintest  shadow^  of  self-con- 
sciousness. They  had  not  reflected  that  they  were  less  build- 
ing than  planting.  They  had  been  the  enterprising  folk  of  a 
typical  western  county-seat.  The  chief  esthetic  element 
which  their  eager  lives  could  entertain  was  a  semi-humorous 
habit  of  picturing  the  larger  destinies  in  reserv^e  for  the  prai- 
rie metropolis.  In  their  serious  hours,  and  those  not  serious 
were  minutes,  they  w'ere  planning  and  doing  the  hard  work 
that  the  passing  moment  demanded.  But  distress  relieved, 
homes  rebuilt,  bu.siness  revSumed,  the  machineries  of  life  re- 
stored and  improved,  they  had  occasional  time  to  look  around 
and  within  themselves  and  to  take  thought  of  their  record. 
Then  the  largeness  of  it  all  began  to  produce  the  first  hesita- 
tion. These  path-breakers  liad  never  distru.«ted  themselves 
when  work  was  ahead,  but  it  had  turned  out  to  be  so  big,  and 
mixed,  so  many  new  people  had  appeared,  it  was  so  much 
more  conventional  and  impersonal  than  they  had  intended, 
that  they  began  to  be  overawed.  Life  threatened  to  pass  from 
the  literal  into  the  mystical.    The  World's  Columbian  Expo- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     MISFITS 


sition  was  their  resolution  to  repeat  and  so  to  reassure  them- 
selves. They  would  not  abdicate  their  own  realness.  They 
would  confirm  the  probability  of  their  own  past  by  doing  the 
impossible  in  the  present. 

It  was  the  audacity  of  a  splendid  humility.  If  they  had 
builded  better  than  they  knew,  they  would  now  show  that 
they  well  knew  how  to  build.  They  had  not  gone  through 
the  discipline  of  difhculty  to  flinch  from  new  enterprise.  They 
were  conscious  of  strength,  and  skill,  and  ideals,  and  to  save 
their  own  self-respect  tliey  would  put  their  reserve  force  into 
a  piece  of  work  fit  to  prove  their  past  no  accident. 

Mr.  Wells  did  not  live  to  share  in  this  masterpiece  of  Chi- 
cago maturit}',  and  his  wife  was  no  longer  able  to  act  on  the 
Woman's  Board  when  the  work  approached  completion,  but 
no  one  had  larger  influence  than  they  in  forming  the  public 
character  of  which  the  ]jlan  and  its  execution  were  consistent 
expressions. 

Ellen  Wells  grew  up  with  the  impression  that  the  family 
standing  was  a  part  of  the  foreordained  order  of  things,  but 
never  quite  comprehending  what  it  meant.  Not  to  be  "promi- 
nent" would  seem  to  her  a  disgrace,  but  she  had  never  thought 
out  the  difi^erent  kinds  of  prominence,  nor  the  different  titles 
to  prominence,  nor  a  standard  to  determine  what  sort  of 
])rominence  is  worth  while.  To  mingle  with  the  leaders  of 
Chicago  societ}'  was  to  her  the  breath  of  life.  Not  that  they 
were  more  congenial  than  others  whose  names  never  appeared 
in  the  papers;  not  that  they  were  more  like  herself;  it  was 
simply  family  tradition  to  move  with  the  leaders. 

When  she  met  Kissinger  she  was  returning  from  the  six 
months  in  Europe  following  the  end  of  her  school  days.  His 
foreignness  had  just  enough  glamour  to  dazzle  her  inexpe- 
rience. It  fitted  into  the  rude  frame  of  romance  that  she 
had  pieced  together  from  the  litter  of  light  fiction  and  the 
scraps  of  fact  which  her  short  excursions  into  life  had  col- 
lected. Their  wedding  was  one  of  the  smartest  events  of  that 
relatively  simple  period. 

Not  long  after  came  the  sudden  death  of  Mr.  Wells, 
hastened  no  doubt  by  the  shock  of  treachery  that  crippled  his 
business  and  left  but  a  fraction  of  his  fortune.  Then  the 
lingering  illness  of  her  mother,  the  birth  of  three  children, 
the  death  of  Mrs.  Wells,  and  an  accident  that  confined  Mrs. 
Kissinger  herself  to  the  house  for  a  year,  filled  time  in  which 

61 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     MISFITS 


luT  world  loft  her  far  belli lul.  Her  old  acquaintances  had 
not  foi\u;ottcn  her.  Indeed  she  had  often  heen  surprised  by 
siiius  of  sympathy  h\nn  |)ersons  liardly  in  her  caliinii;  list. 
But  she  began  to  be  vaguely  aware  that  her  own  status  WcLS 
not  precisely  her  mother's.  People  depended  on  Mrs.  Wells, 
and  looked  up  to  her.  Nobody  seemed  to  find  Mrs.  Kissinger 
essential.  She  would  have  perished  rather  than  admit  it,  but 
in  the  niche  reserved  for  her  heart's  select  skeletons  there 
was  a  nasty  susj)icion  that  she  was  being  [jitied  and  patronized. 

Thereupon  her  resources  rallied  around  an  absorbing  pur- 
pose. It  became  the  passion  of  her  life  to  seem  as  important 
as  her  parents  had  been.  Her  family  nmst  be  recognized. 
Her  social  standing  must  be  respected.  She  must  rank  with 
the  best  people. 

It  was  not  a  mean  aim.  Mrs.  Kissinger  wanted  to  be  worth 
her  reputation  and  to  deserve  her  place.  Her  mother  had, 
why  should  she  not?  That  her  husband  and  herself  were 
lesser  factors  in  the  life  of  the  town  than  her  parents  had 
been,  she  could  not  reconcile.  That  prominence  equal  to 
theirs,  if  not  due  to  the  accident  of  wealth,  must  rest  on  some 
sort  of  individuality  much  stronger  than  hers  or  Mr.  Kissin- 
ger's, was  an  idea  too  sul^tle  for  her  thinking. 

Mrs.  Kissinger  was  not  an  inferior  woman,  but  she  was  ob- 
trusively mediocre.  She  had  not  been  obliged,  like  her  father 
and  mother,  to  make  her  surroundings.  She  was  bred  for  a 
life  that  others  had  made.  She  would  have  fitted  well  in  the 
situation  that  her  parents'  generation  created,  if  that  situa- 
tion had  not  ruthlessly  changed.  She  had  neither  imagina- 
tion, nor  force,  nor  leisure  nor  money  to  fill  a  like  place  in 
the  newer  life.  Her  instincts  were  wholesome  rather  than 
whole.  She  aspired  toward  better  things,  not  because  she  had 
distinct  and  balanced  aims,  but  her  home  life  had  started  her 
in  the  right  direction.  She  had  become  a  club  woman,  not 
because  she  had  very  clear  notions  of  what  a  club  could  do, 
but  because  a  club  was  tangible,  and  might  help  to  satisfy  the 
longing  .she  felt  for  something  more  than  her  life  contained. 
She  believed  in  "culture"  without  forming  a  definite  notion  of 
what  it  might  mean.  The  ''enlargement  of  woman's  sphere" 
was  a  cardinal  point  in  her  creed,  but  beyond  the  dues  of  do- 
mestic loyalty,  and  the  proprieties  of  the  social  intercourse  to 
which  she  had  ])rescriptive  rights,  the  boundaries  of  that 
sphere  were  nebulous  to  her  mind. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     MISFITS 


Mrs.  Kissinger's  demands  upon  life  were  not  really  her 
own ;  they  were  invented  by  other  people,  and  she  felt  forced 
to  adopt  them  to  escape  being  left  out.  She  had  a  fitful  fear 
that  things  were  going  on  among  the  best  people  which 
she  was  in  danger  of  missing.  The  early  death  of  the  two 
younger  children  brought  her  genuine  grief,  but  she  never 
realized  the  measure  of  the  calamity  which  limited  the  scope 
of  her  natural  interests.  At  this  period  all  her  anxieties  cen- 
tered about  the  problem  of  her  daughter's  prospects. 

The  discriminating  classification  of  the  society  column 
placed  Elsie  in  the  category  "beautiful  and  accomplished." 
That  she  was  beautiful  no  one  capable  of  recognizing  radiant 
girlhood  could  have  found  excuse  to  deny.  Her  beauty  was 
not  a  mere  external  aspect  of  facial  form  and  expression.  It 
was  a  compound  of  affluent  health,  sunny  temperament,  eager 
sympathy  and  a  tact  of  mental  coloring  that  animated  her 
most  ordinary  actions.  Both  men  and  women,  of  all  ages  and 
types,  frequently  expressed  in  various  ways  their  sense  of  debt 
to  her  for  merely  existing.  Her  presence  always  stimulated 
good  cheer,  and  kindly  feeling,  and  complaisancy  with  life 
in  general.  She  seemed  to  be  made  for  happiness  and  a  maker 
of  happiness. 

The  subject  of  her  accomplishments  was  somewhat  more 
ambiguous.  She  did  everything  so  easily  that  she  did  noth- 
ing particularly  well.  She  had  no  more  recollection  of  learn- 
ing her  father's  language  than  her  mother's,  and  when  she 
was  taken  at  the  age  of  twelve  for  two  years  in  a  Tochterschule 
with  her  German  cousins,  she  had  little  trouble  in  entering 
their  classes  and  getting  as  high  marks  as  they  did  in  all  the 
work ;  but  her  knowledge  of  German  language  and  literature 
halted  at  the  level  of  a  child  of  fourteen.  At  her  graduation 
from  Ansley  Hall  she  had  received  the  prize  for  the  best  rank 
in  the  class ;  but  it  was  well  known  among  the  girls  that  she 
spent  less  time  and  worry  than  any  of  them  upon  her  studies. 
With  only  the  simplest  rudiments  of  musical  education,  she 
could  sing  all  the  latest  popular  airs,  in  a  decidedly  "catchy" 
style,  playing  her  own  accompaniments  from  memory,  and 
she  had  amused  herself  enough  with  the  violin  to  prove  that 
with  study  she  might  easily  have  become  a  respectable  per- 
former. She  had  often  been  cast  for  leading  parts  in  school 
theatricals,  but  her  success  gave  no  real  proof  of  ability  to 
accomplish  anything  serious  in  dramatic  art.  She  was  simply 

63 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     MISFITS 


her  oxuboraiit  self  upon  the  stage,  and  that  was  enough  to 
satisfy  all  the  requirements  of  amateur  standards.  She  was 
ealled  an  athletie  girl,  hut  in  outdoor  sports  she  was  invari- 
ably just  skillful  enough  to  be  goo<l  eompany.  Her  interest 
in  none  of  them  was  sullioient  to  make  her  exeel. 

For  the  sort  of  reasoners  who  derive  generalizations  from  a 
single  example,  Elsie  Kissinger  would  have  settled  a  leading 
soeial  principle.  It  might  be  stated  in  the  form: — Enlarged 
opportunity  for  women,  without  corresponding  access  of  mas- 
culinitji.  is  a  misfortune.  She  was  irresj)onsibly  feminine. 
She  followed  no  resolutions  of  her  own,  but  merely  seleeted 
the  pressures  to  which  she  would  yield.  While  her  instincts 
were  all  refined,  it  would  require  little  imagination  to  conjure 
the  plot  of  her  ruin  if  she  had  been  thrust  into  an  environ- 
ment that  was  discreetly  bad.  She  was  assailable  not  by  temp- 
tation to  defy  her  ideals,  but  by  solicitation  to  comply  with 
influences  that  would  presently  dissipate  the  ideals. 

Mrs.  Kissinger  was  unconsciously  creating  the  nile  of  her 
daughter's  Nemesis.  She  was  a  protection  against  the  sort 
of  evil  to  which  unguarded  girls  as  pure  as  Elsie  every  day 
succumb.  At  the  same  time  she  had  set  a  mark  that  virtually 
excluded  aims  for  positive  good.  If  Elsie  had  chosen  for  her- 
self upon  leaving  school,  she  would  have  taken  a  full  course 
of  training  either  as  Kindergiirtnerin  or  as  nurse.  Each  alter- 
native was  prompted  by  normal  womanly  traits.  The  girl  was 
not  yet  so  artificialized  that  she  had  to  be  useless  in  order  to 
be  happy.  There  was  healthy  human  feeling  in  the  impulse 
to  have  a  vocation.  There  was  undeveloped  maternal  instinct 
in  her  preference  of  occupations. 

Elsie's  inclinations  affected  her  mother  as  distressingly 
vulgar.  Mrs.  Kissinger  subscribed  in  a  passive  way  to  the 
formal  creed  that  it  is  everybody's  duty  to  be  useful ;  but  she 
knew  of  no  way  in  which  her  own  daughter  could  be  useful 
without  losing  caste.  The  callings  which  Elsie  was  thinking 
about  seemed  to  have  no  more  in  their  favor  than  the  position 
of  a  salesgirl  in  a  down  town  store.  Mrs.  Kissinger  would  not 
have  questioned  the  propriety  of  either  for  the  daughters  of 
people  not  in  society,  and  she  could  frame  no  very  dependable 
reason  why  it  would  be  discreditable  for  Elsie  to  follow  her 
choice.  She  was  simply  sure  that  some  way  must  be  found 
to  turn  her  in  another  direction. 

She  was  tactful  enough  to  avoid  direct  discussion  of  the 

64 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     MISFITS 


question.  She  was  slightly  subdued  by  a  dim  feeHiig  of  in- 
feriority to  her  daughter  in  many  ways,  and  she  especially 
distrusted  her  ability  to  get  the  better  of  her  in  an  argument. 
When  the  subject  once  came  up  indirectly,  Elsie  had  ex- 
pressed her  ideas  in  such  vigorous  terms  that  her  mother's 
eagerness  to  create  a  diversion  was  confirmed.  Elsie  drew  a 
contemptuous  picture  of  the  plight  of  a  girl  without  occupa- 
tion, and  forced  by  fear  of  social  custom  to  advertise  the  con- 
stant confession  "I  am  helpless  and  must  stay  helpless  till 
some  man  marries  me."  As  Mrs.  Kissinger  was  at  a  loss  to 
substitute  a  more  favorable  rendering  of  the  fact,  she  applied 
her  ingenuity  in  other  lines. 

A  batch  of  invitations  to  Elsie  for  Summer  visits  gave  Mrs. 
Kissinger  more  than  ordinary  satisfaction.  With  a  little  ef- 
fort she  contrived  to  prolong  the  series  well  into  October.  By 
that  time  she  had  completed  arrangements  for  Elsie's  "pres- 
entation to  society."  From  the  mother's  point  of  view  the 
daughter  was  an  immediate  success.  More  determined  de- 
cisions than  Elsie's  would  have  weakened  under  the  pressure 
of  engagements  that  made  her  first  season  a  continuous  varia- 
tion of  delicious  excitement. 

It  was  no  trouble  for  Mrs.  Kissinger  to  bridge  over  the  next 
Summer.  In  the  first  place,  the  season's  experience  had  not 
only  overtaxed  Elsie's  abundant  physical  strength,  but  it  had 
o])erated  as  a  moral  anesthetic.  If  her  opinions  were  un- 
changed, there  was  less  energy  in  her  preferences.  It  was 
easier  to  enjoy  than  to  endeavor.  She  was  left  in  a  lotus- 
eating  temper.  In  the  second  place,  the  competition  for  her 
visits  was  sharjier  than  the  year  before.  Circumstances  easily 
insured  gravitation  into  the  second  season  and  then  the  third. 

In  certain  respects  Elsie  Kissinger  had  been  improved  by 
running  the  social  gauntlet.  She  had  apparently  lost  noth- 
ing of  her  genuineness,  and  she  seemed  not  in  the  least  spoiled 
by  extravagant  flattery.  Probably  because  society  offered 
nothing  that  she  was  sure  she  very  much  wanted,  she  had  not 
developed  the  spites  and  jealousies  of  those  women  to  whom 
society  is  a  struggle  for  life.  The  game  had  not  yet  become 
desperate  for  her.  She  was  present  rather  as  an  interested 
spectator.  It  was  playful  humor  rather  than  cynicism  when 
she  said  that  she  deserved  no  credit  for  readiness  to  step  aside 
at  any  time  in  favor  of  other  girls,  because  it  might  be  differ- 
ent if  she  should  ever  meet  a  real  man.    She  had  amply  veri- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     MISFITS 


fioil  hor  pronioiiition  of  tlie  unreality  of  the  life  her  mother 
preferreii ;  and  as  a  matter  of  pure  judgment  she  believed 
more  strongly  than  ever  that  it  was  dignified  for  a  girl  to 
choose  a  serious  employment,  in  which  she  could  be  inde- 
pendent, while  it  was  poorly  disguised  degradation  to  join  in 
the  social  dis]>lay  of  professional  uselessness. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  her  perceptions  had  been  sharp- 
ened, her  purposes  had  been  dulled.  The  toxic  effect  of  com- 
promise was  very  evident  in  Elsie  Kissinger's  compliant  con- 
tinuance in  a  course  she  despised.  She  had  apparently  stopped 
balancing  choice  of  careers,  and  had  accepted  a  destiny  which 
it  would  cost  too  much  effort  to  reverse. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  the  irony  even  of  the  idle  life  that 
it  is  held  sooner  or  later  to  a  declaration  of  intentions.  One 
cannot  remain  forever  the  guileless  debutante  of  the  first 
season.  A  girl  who  has  not  finished  her  play  days,  or  people 
who  have  an  assured  position  in  life,  may  frankly  use  society 
as  an  end.  When  a  girl  is  old  enough  for  her  status  to  be- 
come problematical,  she  may  use  society  only  as  a  means.  If 
she  is  among  the  select  few  who  justify  themselves  as  bachelor 
girls,  society  bows  to  her  success  and  is  happy  to  hold  her  stir- 
rup. If  she  is  among  the  typical  many  to  whom  society  is 
principall}^  a  matrimonal  speculation,  realization  on  the  in- 
vestment may  not  be  indefinitely  deferred.  After  the  permitted 
period  of  grace,  society  becomes  the  sort  of  dissolving  tableau 
in  which  the  proud  pose  of  the  unsuited  passes  imperceptibly 
into  the  painful  predicament  of  the  unsuccessful.  At  thought 
of  a  fourth  season  Elsie  was  hardly  yet  apprehensive,  but  the 
order  of  events  which  she  had  hitherto  regarded  in  a  wholly 
impersonal  light  was  at  last  beginning  to  suggest  applications 
to  herself. 

What  had  been  to  Elsie  an  episode,  with  occasional  fore- 
warnings  of  a  possible  cri.sis,  had  really  become  the  family 
proVjlem.  It  affected  her  father  and  her  mother  very  differ- 
ently. They  tacitly  avoided  comparison  of  views  upon  the 
subject.  Both  brooded  constantly  upon  it,  and  this  was  really 
the  flower,  if  not  the  root,  of  that  foreign  element  which  pro- 
duced in  Kissinger  the  uneasy  feeling  of  an  alien  in  his  own 
household. 

If  he  had  been  consulted,  Kis.singer  would  have  heartily 
encouraged  Elsie's  earlier  ambitions.  His  belief  in  the  dig- 
nity of  labor,  for  both  men  and  women,  was  literal  and  sin- 
ce 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     MISFITS 


cere.  He  felt  that  evasion  of  the  universal  law  of  service  was 
as  dangerous  to  the  individual  as  to  society.  He  distrusted 
people  who  did  not  work,  and  he  felt  that  his  daughter  would 
be  contaminated  by  contact  with  them.  He  believed  that 
marriage  was  desirable  for  both  men  and  women,  and  he 
hoped  that  Elsie  would  come  to  the  same  view ;  but  he  had 
no  dearer  wish  than  that  she  might  make  herself  independent 
enough  to  be  able  to  marry  from  choice  and  not  from  nec- 
essity. 

Mrs.  Kissinger  was  neither  mercenary  nor  unscrupulous, 
but  she  was  frankly  certain  that  it  would  be  a  misalliance  if 
Elsie  should  marry  outside  the  socially  prominent  class ;  and 
among  the  marriageable  men  in  that  class  in  Chicago  her  dis- 
criminations, to  say  the  least,  erred  on  the  side  of  worldly  pru- 
dence. She  had  probably  never  heard  of  Tennyson's  York- 
shire farmer;  but  so  far  as  she  could  influence  her  daughter  it 
was  strictly  in  the  line  of  his  policy.  To  do  Mrs.  Kissinger 
justice,  it  was  guilelessness  rather  than  indifference  that  led 
her  to  encourage  the  attentions  of  men  who  were  received  by 
well  informed  families  only  on  the  most  distant  terms,  and 
purely  from  regard  for  their  relatives. 

Kissinger  was  hardly  better  posted  than  his  wife  about  some 
of  the  men  that  surrounded  Elsie,  but  he  suspected  them  on 
general  principles.  Most  of  them  belonged  in  the  class  that 
had  been  systematically  predisposed  to  vice  by  the  unwise  in- 
dulgence of  their  parents.  The  best  that  could  reasonably  be 
predicted  of  them  was  that,  for  the  sake  of  appearances,  they 
would  exercise  their  license  within  limits  which  would  save 
exposure.  That  they  would  ever  become  good  citizens  was 
hardly  to  be  expected. 

The  cloud  gathering  over  the  Kissinger  household  was 
ominous  in  two  opposite  aspects.  The  father  was  beginning 
to  tremble  for  fear  that  his  daughter  might  marry  one  of 
these  perverts.  The  mother  was  in  the  first  stages  of  hysteria 
for  fear  she  might  not. 


67 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   PROPHET 


THE    PROPHET 


V 

THE   PROPHET 

'It  followed  that  if  more  churches  could  shed  their  religious 
trappings  and  adopt  an  essentially  religious  policy  toward 
the  needs  of  everyday  people,  they  would  presently  be 
alive  with  the  very  masses  that  now  stand  aloof," 


HALLECK  was  one  of  the  few  ministers  in  Chicago  who 
preached  to  more  men  than  women.  A  first  glance  at 
his  congregation  might  suggest  that  it  was  a  commercial  asso- 
ciation, with  a  sprinkling  of  additions  from  the  families  of 
the  older  strata.  There  was  nothing  ecclesiastical  about  the 
hall  in  which  the  service  was  held,  and  still  less  of  the  tradi- 
tional demeanor  of  piety  in  the  assembly  itself.  The  details 
of  seating  the  people,  and  of  conducting  the  program,  would 
impress  a  stranger  as  first  of  all  business-like.  At  the  same 
time  one  could  hardly  fail  to  note  the  general  decorum  and 
dignity  and  thoughtfulness.  Anyone  accustomed  to  classi- 
fying audiences  would  quickly  decide  that,  while  this  one 
represented  no  extraordinary  grade  of  intellect,  it  responded 
principally  to  the  stimulus  of  reason,  rather  than  of  emotion. 
Perhaps  it  would  not  be  remarked  at  first  contact,  but  after 
one  or  two  repetitions  of  the  test  it  would  be  clear  that  a  sec- 
tarian tone  was  conspicuous  by  its  absence. 

Indeed,  though  some  of  the  older  members  of  the  church 
would  doubtless  repudiate  the  finding,  it  would  not  require 
phenomenal  shrewdness  to  make  out  that  the  only  basis  of 
common  understanding  between  congregation  and  minister 
amounted  substantially  to  this  creed: — 'We  have  all  the 
centuries  of  religious  yearnings  behind  us.  They  have 
threshed  out  a  great  many  religious  conceptions.  They  have 
left  us  a  record  that  is  instructive.  We  learn  from  it  much 
more  about  the  limits  of  profitable  prying  into  the  mysteries 
of  life  than  positive  knowledge  of  what  is  beyond  the  range 
of  human  vision.  This  tradition,  and  especially  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  portion,  furnishes  a  fund  of  common  ideas 
which  we  accept  or  reject  according  to  our  own  judgment; 
and  it  gives  to  our  minds  a  certain  sympathetic  bent  in  deal- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROPHET 


ini^  with  fundaiuoiital  questions;  but  it  leaves  us  free  to  reach 
our  own  deeisions.  We  have  tlie  same  assential  problems 
that  have  puzzled  peof)le  before  our  day,  but  they  come  up 
in  now  forms,  and  it  takes  more  to  satisfy  us  with  anything 
projwsed  as  a  solution.  On  the  whole,  the  main  thing  seems 
to  be  to  face  life  with  ])erfect  candor.  We  want  to  know  the 
tnith,  whether  it  is  now  or  old.  and  we  believe  it  is  our  busi- 
ness to  square  ourselves  with  the  truth,  however  it  hits." 

Although  Ilalleck  had  never  used  precisely  this  language 
in  explaining  his  own  beliefs,  his  whole  policy  put  it  into 
consistent  practice.  Before  he  had  been  in  the  pastorate  a 
year  he  had  decided  that  his  mission  was  chiefly  with  a  type 
of  people  who  had  no  respect  for  the  cloth,  nor  for  anything 
else  that  would  prevent  them  from  meeting  whatever  he 
might  say  with  the  challenge,  "IIow  do  you  know?"  lie 
did  not  feel  bound  in  consequence  to  restrict  himself  to  state- 
ments that  he  could  prove.  He  simply  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  would  never  lend  himself  to  the  duplicity  of  trying  to 
enforce  by  authority  anything  which  he  knew  to  be  merely 
a  matter  of  opinion. 

At  first  Halleck  had  attracted  only  feeble  attention.  The 
church  had  been  principally  the  personal  following  of  a 
preacher  gifted  with  a  rare  combination  of  qualities,  and  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  his  influence  could  not  be  transferred  to 
a  successor.  The  task  which  the  young  minister  undertook 
was  to  build  up  a  new  constituency  fast  enough  to  replace 
defections  from  the  old.  His  success  was  by  no  means  rapid. 
In  two  or  three  years,  however,  he  had  won  a  hearing,  and 
the  congregation  had  so  increased  in  size  that  a  larger  hall 
was  leased.  If  the  new  subscribers  for  sittings  had  been 
polled  for  their  reasons,  the  replies  would  have  pointed  more 
to  Halleck's  personality  than  to  his  preaching.  He  made 
his  impression  primarily  as  an  earnest  fellow-man  trying  to 
avoid  shams  in  getting  at  a  sane  version  of  life.  He  was 
never  a  priest  working  the  credit  of  supposed  inside  informa- 
tion about  the  unknowable. 

W^ithout  the  slightest  affectation,  or  pretense  or  appeal  to 
credulity,  Halleck  expected  his  congregation  to  grant  one 
fundamental  position.  He  believed,  and  in  all  his  preaching 
he  assumed,  that  the  world  had  discovered  no  more  convinc- 
ing moral  attitude  than  that  of  Jesus.  He  insisted  that  our 
judgments  of  ethical  values  are  credible  in  the  degree  in 

72 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


which  Ihey  may  be  reaffirmed    from  Jesns'   point  of  view. 

At  the  same  time,  TTalleck  always  referred  to  Jesus  as  a 
test  of  the  spirit  of  Hfe  rather  than  of  the  nile  of  Hfe.  In 
his  thinking  this  was  a  cardinal  distinction.  He  was  sure 
that  some  of  the  most  costly  mistakes  of  the  Church  had  been 
due  to  disregard  of  the  distinction.  He  found  the  religious 
significance  of  Jesus  not  primarily  in  any  addition  he  may 
have  made  to  the  world's  knowledge  of  what  is  right,  but  in 
his  influence  upon  the  world's  appreciation  of  the  importance 
of  doing  the  right  that  i.s  known.  He  said  for  example,  that 
Jesus  had  none  of  the  sj)ecial  information  necessary  for  draft- 
ing a  Russian  constitution,  or  an  American  tariff.  His  gift 
was  the  more  fundamental  one  of  knowing  the  moral  attitude 
that  a  man  ought  to  maintain  when  his  duty  leads  up  to  one 
of  these  tasks. 

The  fact  that  his  public  was  steadily  growing,  and  that  the 
proportion  of  men  increa.sed  faster  than  the  total  gain,  was 
not  only  a  personal  gratification  to  Halleck,  but  he  took  it 
a.s  a  valuable  item  of  evidence  in  social  and  religious  psychol- 
ogy. He  did  not  question  that  the  preponderating  demand 
for  religions  of  authority  reflected  the  average  mental  juve- 
nility of  mankind.  So  far  as  they  could  not  be  disposed 
of  as  mere  variations  of  religions  of  authority,  Halleck  was 
inclined  to  hail  even  the  most  extravagant  of  the  religions  of 
mystification,  of  which  the  last  quarter  century  had  been  so 
prolific,  as  in  part  onsets  of  approaching  mental  puberty. 
But  he  believed  there  was  already  more  maturity  among 
modern  men  than  religious  statistics  would  indicate.  He 
did  not  find  the  marks  of  it  chiefly  among  the  people  who 
considered  themselves  highly  cultured.  On  the  contrary, 
if  he  had  been  a  free  lance  in  education,  as  he  was  in  re- 
ligion, he  would  have  said  that  a  so-called  cultured  person  is 
one  Avho  is  bound  to  show  cause  why  he  should  not  be  sus- 
pected of  superinduced  incompetence  to  see  things  as  they 
are.  He  detected  mental  maturity  rather  in  the  rare  peo- 
ple, educated  or  uneducated,  who  are  able  to  face  life  as  a 
whole  in  a  genuinely  candid  temper. 

One  of  Halleck's  unpublished  opinions  was  that  a  consid- 
erable fraction  of  the  unchurched,  and  the  partially  churched, 
were  to  be  classed  not  as  irreligious,  but  as  more  religious  than 
the  churches.  It  followed  that  if  more  churches  would  shed 
their  religious  trappings  and  adopt  an  essentially  religious 

73 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     PROPHET 


jx^liov  towiirci  \ho  iioods  of  I'verv  day  people,  (liey  would  pres- 
ently be  alive  with  the  very  masses  that  now  stood  aloof. 

The  mental!  maturity  that  Halleek  detected,  as  a  trait  of 
occiv^ional  men  and  women,  was  a  sort  of  .';oj)histieated  matter- 
of-faetnes8.  It  wii.s  a  minority  exeei>tioii  which  ))roved  the 
nile  that  most  men  like  to  ])e  humhu,c:;,G;ed.  It  wa.*^  a  habit, 
whieh  a  few  men  f2;et  throup;h  soientifie  training,  but  more 
from  the  discipline  of  their  occupatiotis.  of  demandiufj;  the 
facts  of  everything  that  claimed  their  attention. 

Halleek  was  sure  that  life  had  at  last  differentiated  a  type 
of  men  who  want  to  be  treated  just  as  literally  in  religion  as 
they  expect  to  be  in  their  trial  balances,  or  the  crop  reports, 
or  the  statement  of  bank  clearings.  They  do  not  require 
that  religion  shall  appeal  to  the  same  interests,  nor  in  the 
same  terms,  nor  by  the  same  standards.  They  require  that 
religion  shall  observe  the  same  distinctioTis  between  fact  and 
fancy  which  have  to  be  respected  elsewhere.  They  require 
that  religion  shall  justify  itself  as  a  literal  interpretation  of 
experience.  They  require  that  religion  .shall  furnish  a  cred- 
ible perspective  of  life.  They  refu.«e  submission  to  rehgion 
as  a  discipline  .superadded  to  life. 

A  single  case  of  the  natural  selection  of  a  congregation  of 
a  couple  of  thousands  from  the  i^opulation  of  Chicago  would 
do  little  toward  proving  the  general  validity  of  a  theory.  Hal- 
leek realized  that  he  might  easily  overestimate  the  influence 
of  a  single  factor  in  his  own  success.  It  might  be  that  he  had 
a  hearing  in  .spite  of  being  mistaken  about  the  key  to  the 
modern  man's  attention.  He  was  .surely  not  tempted  to 
magnify  any  inferences  from  his  own  experiments  into  laws 
for  general  application.  He  early  adopted  the  rule  for  him- 
self, however,  that  he  would  never  vitter  in  his  preaching  any- 
thing which  he  could  not  repeat  in  less  formal  w^ords,  in  a 
casual  conversation  at  the  club,  or  to  a  chance  acquaintance 
in  the  smoking  room  of  a  Pullman  car. 

Whatever  Halleek  might  say,  or  refrain  from  saying,  about 
the  results  of  his  work,  he  had  attracted  the  notice  of  many 
other  religious  leaders.  There  had  been  vigorous  debate 
among  them  about  the  extent  to  which  his  experience  should 
be  taken  as  a  sign  of  the  times.  Arguments  had  often  cov- 
ered the  ground  between  tw^o  extrem&s.  It  w^as  charged  on 
the  one  hand  that  the  sort  of  thing  which  Halleek  repre- 
sented was  not  religion  at  all,  but  merely  an  unreligious 

74 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


morality,  with  forged  endorsement  of  religious  phrases.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  great  many  of  the  younger  ministers  were 
Ksaying  among  themselves  that  Halleck  had  given  them  a 
better  idea  of  what  the  expected  rastatement  of  religion  would 
be  like  in  practice  than  all  the  other  theories  and  experiments 
together  had  suggested  up  to  date.  Meanwhile  what  Hegel 
would  have  called  the  synthesis  of  the  two  extremes  was  the 
working  organization  of  which  Halleck  was  the  centre. 
There  was  no  more  masculine  moral  force  in  Chicago. 

On  the  previous  Monday  there  had  been  a  general  min- 
isters' conference  upon  the  topic.  What  can  the  pastors  of 
Chicago  do  in  the  approaching  labor  crisis?  When  one  of 
the  pastors  told  a  large  contractor,  a  vestryman  of  his  church, 
that  he  was  on  his  way  to  take  part  in  the  discussion,  and  re- 
peated the  subject,  he  received  a  flood  of  light  from  the  frank 
ejaculation,  "For  God's  sake,  tell  them  to  keep  their  mouths 
shut!"  Belief  that  radical  principles  were  presently  to  be  on 
trial,  and  that  there  was  danger  of  generating  explosives  in 
every  attempt  to  guide  public  feeling,  had  been  growing 
during  the  week.  Halleck  felt  the  current  the  moment  he 
stood  before  the  congregation.  It  thrilled  and  exhilarated 
him,  and  made  him  eager  to  do  his  part;  yet  he  had  to  brace 
himself  with  all  his  strength  against  surges  of  shame  at  the 
audacity  of  trying  to  make  his  feeble  voice  a  factor  in  the 
coming  struggle. 

Not  precisely  the  same,  but  a  corresponding  conflict  of  emo- 
tions had  quickened  the  pulse  of  the  congregation  during  the 
earlier  parts  of  the  service.  Halleck  began  his  sermon  in  a 
tone  which  might  have  been  called  an  echo  of  the  hush  that 
had  fallen  upon  his  hearers.  There  was  no  artifice  in  it,  but 
merely  spontaneous  adaptation.  His  first  sentence  was  equiva- 
lent to  a  pledge  that,  whether  he  said  much  or  little,  whether 
he  spoke  wisely  or  unwisely,  he  would  try  to  deal  frankly 
with  the  uppermost  thought  of  the  hour. 

"We  should  look  in  vain  for  anything  that  came  to  the 
knowledge  of  Jesus,  or  that  is  recorded  anywhere  in  the  Bible, 
which  is  an  exact  parallel  of  the  social  situation  in  Chicago 
today. 

"There  have  always  been  social  classes,  but  until  now  never 
our  social  classes. 

"There  have  always  been  class  struggles,  but  only  today 
our  class  struggles. 

76 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROPHET 


"If  there  are  people  who  tliink  they  eiin  .<2;o  to  the  Rible 
and  i:;et.  a  ready-made  sohit ion  of  our  present  h\l)or  problems, 
as  they  can  send  the  number  of  their  watch  to  the  factory  and 
pet  a  substitute  for  a  broken  wheel,  they  arc  doomed  to  bo  not 
only  disappointed  but  dani!;erous. 

"Yet.  in  his  most  famous  popular  address,  Jesus  touched 
on  the  problem  of  poverty,  as  it  was  known  in  his  day.  It 
was  not  the  modern  ])Overty  jiroblem.  It  was  very  much 
simpler.  But  in  tellinp;  people  how  to  act  about  the  bare  neces- 
sities of  life  Jesus  sounded  a  note  which  contains  the  secret  of 
all  permanent  social  harmony. 

"I  quote  enoujrh  of  Jesus'  words  to  indicate  both  the  con- 
crete conditions  that  he  had  in  mind,  and  the  general  prin- 
ciple by  which  he  would  test  all  schemes  for  social  improve- 
ment. This  is  what  he  said,  as  reported  by  the  Apostle 
Matthew : — 

"  'Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  Be  not  anxious  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall 
eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink;  nor  yet  for  your  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on. 
Ts  not  the  life  more  than  the  food,  and  the  body  than  the  raiment?  Behold 
the  birds  of  the  heaven,  that  they  sow  not,  neither  do  they  reap,  nor  gather 
into  barns;  and  your  heavenly  Father  feedeth  them.  Are  ye  not  of  much 
more  value  than  they?  And  which  of  you  by  being  anxious  can  add  one  cubit 
unto  his  stature?  And  why  are  ye  anxious  concerning  raiment?  Consider 
the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin; 
}-et  I  say  unto  you  that  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like 
one  of  these.  But  if  God  doth  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field,  which  today 
is,  and  tomorrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall  he  not  much  more  clothe  you, 
O  ye  of  little  faith?  Be  not  therefore  anxious,  saying.  What  shall  we  eatf 
or.  What  shall  we  drink?  or,  WTierewithal  shall  we  be  clothed?  For  after 
all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek;  for  your  heavenly  Father  knoweth 
that  ye  have  need  of  all  these  things.  But  seek  ye  first  his  kingdom  and  his 
righteousness;  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.  Be  not  there- 
fore anxious  for  the  morrow:  for  the  morrow  will  be  anxious  for  itself. 
SuflBcient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof. ' 

"Ever  since  these  words  were  spoken,"  Plalleck  expounded, 
"the  interpreters  have  been  busy  degrading  them  to  base 
uses.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  in  the  whole  history  of  litera- 
ture a  more  vivid  illustration  of  the  rough  old  saw,  'No  teacher 
can  furnish  ideas  and  brains  too.' 

"Jesus  has  been  made  to  teach  that  if  people  will  be  pious, 
God  will  do  the  rest. 

"What  Jesus  meant  was  that  God  has  done  the  rest  before- 
hand, and  real  piety  consists  in  acting  accordingly. 

"In  other  words,  the  only  way  to  insure  the  supply  of 

76 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


human  wants  is  to  lead  the  kind  of  life  which  draws  ration- 
ally on  the  resources  that  God  has  already  provided. 

"Jesus  did  not  say,  Religion  will  feed  you.  He  virtually 
said,  'Feeding  yourselves  is  religion.' 

"Jesus  was  apparently  talking  to  people  who  were  thrift- 
less, like  our  southern  negroes.  They  were  tempting  fate 
by  shirking  work,  and,  to  use  a  slang  phrase,  'laying  down  on 
God.'  They  were  like  an  excessively  pseudo-religious  college 
classmate  of  mine,  who  one  Sunday  evening  testified  in  prayer 
meeting:  'I  had  been  taking  a  walk  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river.  When  the  prayer  meeting  bells  began  to  ring  I  was 
in  the  middle  of  the  bridge.  I  dropped  down  on  my  knees 
and  prayed  the  Lord  that  I  might  not  be  late.' 

"To  that  sort  of  people  Jesus  said  'Stop  worrying  about 
what  will  become  of  you  if  you  spend  your  time  worrying. 
Take  up  your  part  in  the  scheme  of  things,  and  the  scheme 
of  things  will  take  care  of  you.' 

"The  promises  of  religion  are  due  only  to  the  kind  of  piety 
that  is  practical. 

"Superstition  spends  itself  on  grafting  experiments  to  beat 
the  laws  of  nature. 

"Genuine  religion  learns  the  la^-s  of  nature,  and  conforms 
to  them,  and  gets  the  benefits  of  their  workings. 

"Not  worry,  but  work,  is  the  worship  that  pays. 

"Of  course,  a  life  philosophy  so  radical,  packed  into  a  few 
such  proverbs  as  these,  must  be  qualified  and  expanded  and 
diluted  in  a  thousand  ways,  before  it  can  fertilize  the  popular 
mind.  Expressed  from  the  other  point  of  view,  human  stu- 
pidity had  to  go  through  thousands  of  years  of  hard  knock- 
ing against  reality,  before  many  wits  were  sharp  enough  to 
accept  the  truth  of  this  philosophy. 

"But  in  our  paraphrase  of  Jesus'  words,  so  far,  we  have 
repeated  only  the  alphabet  of  his  complete  idea.  So  much 
fits  the  case  of  the  ordinary  man,  in  his  relations  to  every  day 
ta.sks.  The  pith  of  this  philosophy,  however,  is  contained  in 
what  follows;  and  I  know  of  nothing  in  the  entire  range  of 
religion  that  cuts  closer  to  the  quick  of  our  present  social 
situation." 

By  this  time  the  hush  of  the  congregation  had  become  less 
strained.     The  audience  had  the  manner  of  a  greater  jury 

77 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROPHET 


interested  in  the  ciise.  Miiny  bodies  were  bent  forward,  as 
far  iL^  the  next  row  of  chains  would  allow,  not  because  it  was 
ditlieult  to  hear,  for  Ilalleck's  voice  easily  carried  its  lightest 
intlections  to  every  part  of  the  hall;  but  rather  as  an  involun- 
tary sign  of  attention.  Halleck  too  was  reassured  by  a  re- 
turn of  the  feeling  that  he  had  a  piece  of  real  work  on  his 
hands,  and  he  settled  himself  for  the  main  action. 

"In  .summing  up  his  talk  to  this  multitude  of  commonplace 
folk,  about  the  working  partnership  between  the  providence 
of  God  and  human  conduct,  Je.sus  coined  an  axiom  of  moral 
economy: — ^Seek  ye  first  his  kingdom,  and  his  righteoua- 
ness.  and  all  these  thiiigs  shall  be  added  unto  you.' 

"If  we  listen  to  all  the  social  philosophers  who  have  the  ear 
of  the  world  today,  we  hear  no  word  that  rings  truer  than  this 
generalization  of  Jesus. 

"Curiously  enough,  and  flattering  to  our  pride  of  knowl- 
edge, the  harmony  is  most  apparent  between  the  theorem  of 
Jesus  and  the  most  modern  phases  of  social  philosophy.  The 
interpretations  of  life  which  are  giving  most  credible  proof 
of  their  right  to  disturb  tradition  have  at  bottom  most  in 
common  with  the  insight  of  the  Great  Teacher. 

"The  eighteenth  century  mortgaged  the  nineteenth  to  a 
view  of  life  from  which  it  is  the  task  of  the  twentieth  century 
to  earn  our  release. 

"The  types  of  arms  with  which  most  nineteenth  century 
battles  were  fought,  are  no  more  obsolete  than  the  assortment 
and  emphasis  of  ideas  behind  nineteenth  century  struggles. 

"The  eighteenth  century  persuaded  itself  that  the  social 
world  is  made  up  of  individuals  whose  independence  of  each 
other  is  the  first  law  of  life. 

"Wherever  this  general  version  of  the  world  appeared  with 
religious  coloring,  a  sort  of  private  wireless  telegraphy  be- 
tween each  individual  and  God  was  pictured  as  the  central 
feature  in  the  moral  structure;  while  no  clear  consistent  ac- 
count was  given  of  the  bonds  that  unite  men  with  one  another. 

"Individualistic  philosophy  at  its  best  is  merely  a  refine- 
ment of  selfishnass. 

"It  is  a  theory  of  paramount  private  rights  unbalanced  by 
recognition  or  guarantee  of  liabilities  to  the  social  whole. 

"Men  on  the  high  placas  know  that  the  individualistic  in- 
terpretation of  life  breaks  down  in  presence  of  the  facts. 

78 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


"The  intellectual  and  moral  tone-givers  of  the  twentieth 
century  are  confidently  calling  back  to  the  half-seers  of  the 
eighteenth,  'No !  not  the  independence,  but  the  dependence  of 
individuals  is  the  first  law  of  life !'  " 

The  illustrations  and  comments  with  which  Halleck  sup- 
ported these  abstract  vStatements  evidently  did  their  work. 
There  was  no  sign  of  wandering  attention.  The  audience 
seemed  to  have  followed  the  line  of  thought,  and  to  be  ready 
for  the  next  step  in  the  argument. 

"There  are  almost  as  many  theories  about  what  Jesus 
meant  by  the  phrase  'the  Kingdom'  as  there  are  first-hand  stu- 
dents of  the  New  Tastanient.  It  is  not  necessary  to  catalogue 
them,  nor  to  decide  betAveen  them,  in  order  to  be  sure  of 
enough  of  the  substance  of  his  teaching  for  our  present  pur- 
pose. 

"The  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is  this.  There  is  no  hope  of 
putting  human  affairs  on  a  secure  and  satisfactory  basis, 
until  we  transfer  the  meridian  line  of  all  social  calculation 
from  our  own  selves  to  a  moral  order  that  is  bigger  than  our 
special  interests. 

"It  makes  comparatively  little  difference  whether  we  mis- 
take our  higher  or  our  lower  interests  for  the  axis  on  which 
our  world  turns. 

"We  may  be  just  as  fatally  at  odds  with  the  final  law  of 
life  if  we  suppose  the  centre  of  things  is  a  plan  for  our  soul's 
salvation,  as  we  are  if  we  assume  that  the  moral  fulcrum  is  a 
scheme  of  individual  rights  in  economic  competition. 

"We  are  bound  to  see  things  in  a  blur,  and  to  tangle  our- 
selves in  moral  confusion,  in  the  degree  that  our  theory  and 
our  practice  presuppose  that  our  selfish  appraisal  of  our  pri- 
vate rights  can  settle  our  relation  to  our  fellow  men. 

"Magnify  our  inner  life,  and  our  individual  worth,  how  we 
will — and  we  cannot  overestimate  them  if  the  other  factor  at 
the  same  time  gets  its  ratio  of  value — at  our  largest  and  our 
best,  with  all  that  we  have  and  all  that  we  are,  each  of  us  is 
merely  an  infinitesimal  subject  in  a  sovereign  moral  order. 

"The  elements  of  value  are  in  ourselves,  but  the  proportions 
of  our  values,  and  their  claims  to  precedence,  and  the  measure 
of  influence  they  may  justly  exert  upon  the  destinies  of  other 

79 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


I 


THE    PROPHET 


men.  are  settlod  at  last  not  by  our  sojiarato  standartls,  but  by 
the  sui>ivine  moral  constitution. 

"This  final  arbiter  rates  the  individual,  without  preference 
or  prejudice,  on  his  merits  as  a  factor  in  the  well-working  of 
the  whole. 

"Whether  we  arrive  at  this  {principle  through  the  traditions 
of  religion,  or  through  direct  perception,  or  through  the  find- 
ings of  social  .science,  it  is  the  only  secure  foundation  for 
society. 

"If  private  interests  may  constitute  petty  sovereignties,  each 
a  law  unto  itself,  there  is  no  peace  for  the  world  till  some  in- 
terest shall  destroy  or  subdue  all  the  r&st. 

"If  there  is  a  sovereign  order,  then  peace  can  assume  its 
place  in  human  affairs  only  through  surrender  of  sovereignty 
by  separate  interests,  and  acceptance  of  allegiance  to  the  su- 
preme interest  of  the  whole. 

"Whether  we  call  this  foundation  ))rinciple  of  human 
society,  natural  law,  or  the  world  order,  or  the  welfare  of  all, 
or  essential  justice,  or  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  whether  we  think 
of  it  in  naturalistic,  or  legalistic,  or  religious  forms,  our  pres- 
ent insight  into  moral  relations  affords  us  no  further  appeal. 

"We  have  our  choice  between  an  arbitrary  social  world, 
and  society  progressively  conforming  to  verified  moral  values. 
In  that  direction  lies  anarchy.    In  this  direction  is  progress. 

"We  have  our  choice  between  taking  our  risks  fighting  for 
our  chances  in  an  arbitrary  world,  and  working  out  our  com- 
mon salvation  in  a  rational  world. 

"The  one  alternative  is  destructive  and  costly  to  the  aver- 
age man.  The  other  is  constructive,  and  insures  to  the  aver- 
age man  the  largest  rate  of  return  for  his  investment  in  life. 

"We  shall  live  in  a  world  of  disorder,  of  accident,  of  cross 
purposes,  with  a  ruinous  rate  of  frustration  and  disappoint- 
ment, until  our  lives  are  federated  around  a  common  centre, 
and  controlled  by  a  common  principle  pervasive  enough  to 
organize  all  our  clashing  interests  into  mutual  support. 

"Allowing  then  for  the  necessary  inaccuracy  of  great  gen- 
eralizations popularized  in  proverbial  form,  Jesus  actually 
anticipated  the  sobera«t  rasults  of  modern  social  science  when 
he  said  'Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  his  righteous- 
ness, and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.'  " 

80 


B  ETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


A  few  faces  in  the  congregation  gave  signs  of  foreseeing 
the  application  of  this  analysis  to  the  specific  issue.  Others 
indicated  appreciation  of  the  high  plane  on  which  the  ques- 
tion was  evidently  to  be  considered,  with  curiosity  whether 
a  connection  could  be  found  between  these  generalities  and 
the  pending  problem.  The  majority  seemed  to  understand 
what  had  been  said,  but  with  a  passive  sort  of  intelligence 
which  was  docile  rather  than  critical.  Halleck  made  a  men- 
tal note  that  he  was  calling  on  his  hearers  for  a  wider  survey 
than  usual,  but  he  felt  that  he  was  driving  down  some  stakes 
that  would  be  permanent  points  of  departure.  His  pause  was 
a  signal  for  a  moment's  recess  of  attention,  and  his  manner 
when  he  resumed  gave  notice  of  transition  to  a  different  phase 
of  the  subject. 

"For  practical  purposes,  the  constitutional  law  of  society, 
or  the  Kingdom  of  God,  has  always  meant,  and  always  nmst 
mean,  the  largest  conception  that  can  be  entertained,  in  a 
given  situation,  of  the  entire  community  of  interests  which 
fixes  the  proportional  rating  of  all  contending  special  in- 
terests. 

"It  would  be  easy,  if  time  allowed,  to  recite  historical  illus- 
trations of  this  fact.  They  range  from  primitive  tribal  con- 
ditions, in  which  that  group  survives  and  prospers  which  ex- 
hibits the  highest  degree  of  individual  subordination  to  group 
interests,  up  to  the  standards  of  civilization,  which  set  the 
limits  within  which  stronger  peoples  may  dictate  to  weaker 
neighbors.  The  record  is  so  clear  on  this  point,  however, 
that  we  may  merely  mention  it,  and  go  on  to  its  bearings  upon 
our  own  case. 

"Human  knowledge  of  social  justice,  or  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  is  like  the  traveller's  conception  of  the  height  of  a  moun- 
tain. It  can  be  filled  out  only  by  practical  experiment  with 
the  facts. 

"For  us,  social  justice,  or  the  Kingdom  of  God,  must  be 
the  largest  sweep  of  human  interests  that  we  can  bring  into 
view,  arranged  in  accordance  with  the  truest  scale  of  compar- 
ative values  that  we  can  understand. 

"For  you  and  me,  social  justice,  or  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
cannot  mean  less  than  a  fair  field  and  an  impartial  judgment 
for  every  sort  of  human  interest  that  is  struggling  for  recog- 
nition today.     The  Kingdom  of  God  has  no  place  for  pref- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROPHET 


eronce  or  concession  to  one  interest  more  than  tniothor,  ex- 
cept on  valitl  evidence  tluit  progressing  lunnnn  well-being 
requires  stimulus  of  this  interest  and  restraint  of  that. 

"  'Pure  religion  and  nndefiled'  does  not  mean  today  'to 
visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  aflliction."  That  is 
common  decency.  It  is  matter  of  course.  We  have  out- 
grown it  as  an  ideal.  There  is  harder  work  for  religion  to  do 
now  than  that.  Pure  religion  means  to  take  the  next  .steps 
toward  realizing  the  Kingdom  of  CJod.  Pure  religion  means 
to  adopt  into  our  conception  of  human  obligation  the  mo.st 
enlightened  standard  of  moral  action  that  we  can  discover. 
Pure  religion  means  to  quit  taking  refuge  behind  social  con- 
ventionalities that  exempt  our  interests  from  submitting  to 
re-examination  of  their  title.  Pure  religion  means  to  unite 
in  a  ]>eri)etual  i)eace  congres.s  with  our  fellow  men.  for  inquc.4 
into  the  operations  of  established  institutions.  Pure  religion 
means  resolution  to  dimini.<h  the  ill-workings  of  these  insti- 
tutions when  they  work  ill,  and  to  protect  their  well-working 
when  they  work  well ;  to  judge  between  the  claims  of  vested 
rights  and  protested  rights;  to  devise  means  of  reducing  to  a 
minimum  the  ob.strnctive  possibilities  of  selfishness,  and  to 
accelerate  every  notion  toward  harmonized  human  progress. 

"A  keen  newspaper  man  would  find  in  a  twentieth  century 
version  of  this  old  speech  of  Jesus  a  first  page  'story'  for  to- 
morrow's paper.  It  goes  to  the  roots  of  our  moderp  troubles, 
while  most  of  the  agitators  and  reformers  are  merely  spraying 
some  of  the  twigs. 

"In  a  word,  if  we  want  the  benefits  of  religion  we  must 
first  get  religion.  If  we  are  bound  to  let  our  world  stay  as 
crude  and  blind  and  bad  as  it  is.  we  must  take  the  conse- 
quences, and  go  on  distributing  the  losses  by  insuring  our- 
selves as  well  as  we  may  against  the  extra-hazardous  risk  of 
living  in  such  a  world.  To  reduce  the  risk  we  must  remove 
the  hazards. 

"There  was  never  in  the  world  before  such  a  volume  of 
demand  for  richer  life,  better  secured,  more  widely  distrib- 
uted. It  Ls  not  merely  a  demand  for  more  fleshpots.  It  is 
also  an  honest  l-vx  for  completer  living.  There  is  one  way  to 
satisfy  the  demand,  and  one  only.  Lift  life  to  the  next 
higher  moral  plane.  Accept  life  as  a  common  enterprise. 
Stop  treating  it  as  a  handicap  race.  Retire  your  obsolete 
morality.     Ratify  the  next  clause  in  the  con.<5titution  of  the 

82 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


Kingdom  of  God,  and  you  will  presently  begin  to  transform 
the  waste  of  this  half-civilized  human  struggle  into  the  divi- 
dends of  a  loftier  righteousness!" 

Halleck's  style  seldom  passed  from  the  conversational  to 
the  deelamatory.  In  the  exeeptional  cases  there  was  no  pre- 
niedialed  effort  for  dramatic  effect,  but  genuine  feeling  was 
allowed  to  utter  it.'^elf  without  restraint.  In  the  last  few 
minutes  Ilalleck  had  felt  the  freedom  and  the  joy  of  a  seer 
arriving  within  sight  of  a  ju'ospect  unfamiliar  to  most  men. 
The  distinctness  of  the  vision  strenigthened  bis  faith.  His 
voice  responded  to  the  impulse  and  spurred  the  audience  like 
a  bugle  sounding  the  charge.  After  stopping  long  enough 
to  avoid  an  abrupt  contrast,  he  resumed  the  argument  in  his 
usual  manner. 

"We  are  tempted  to  consume  such  large  outlooks  as  lux- 
uries. We  shirk  our  duty  unless  we  capitalize  them  as  in- 
vestments. Our  business  is  to  bring  the  particuhu*  case  that 
is  nearest  to  our  thoughts  into  focus  within  this  wide  per- 
spective. 

"From  the  view  point  which  we  have  just  considered, 
many  debatable  aspects  of  every  special  social  situation  are 
visible.  AVe  are  likely  to  have  occasion  to  deal  with  a  long 
list  of  them  before  we  hear  the  last  of  our  present  difficulties. 
We  shall  have  done  enough  for  one  Sunday,  if  we  make 
practical  application  of  the  principle  before  us  in  a  single 
pha.se  of  its  bearing  upon  our  problem. 

"Until  we  have  accomplished  the  ascent  to  the  next  higher 
level  of  life,  the  Kingdom  of  God,  as  a  goal  to  be  reached, 
and  as  an  obligation  to  be  accepted,  will  mean,  in  a  word, 
human  struggle  transformed  into  a  system  of  mutual  aid. 

"If  we  want  to  take  this  principle  out  of  religious  terms, 
and  give  it  a  more  commonplace  phrasing,  we  may  put  the 
facts  in  this  way : — Life  is  misunderstood  if  it  is  thought  of 
as  a  collection  of  parallel  interests  which  are  at  their  best 
when  the}'  let  one  another  alone.  Life  is  a  system  of  re- 
ciprocating interests.  They  cannot  avoid  the  alternative  of 
obstructing  or  promoting  one  another.  The  total  output 
of  life  will  be  increased  in  quantity  and  improved  in  quality 
in  the  degree  in  which  we  learn  how  to  advance  from  struggle 

83 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PROPHET 


between  interestv<,  and  defeat  and  destnu'tion  of  one  interest 
by  another,  to  concurrence  and  correlation  of  interests. 

"We  claim  to  have  risen  above  the  rule  of  force,  and  to 
have  adopted  the  rule  of  reason ;  but  we  are  marking  time 
before  tlie  next  great  Aep  in  human  progress.  As  a  rule 
every  interest  persists  in  using  against  all  rival  interests  the 
method  of  force  instead  of  the  method  of  reason. 

"Let  us  look  our  present  local  situation  frankly  in  the  face. 
It  sets  our  special  task  in  promoting  social  welfare,  or  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  At  the  same  time  it  is  merely  one  typical 
case  of  the  universal  problem  of  modern  society. 

"The  men  who  earn  wages,  and  the  men  who  pay  wages, 
are  trying  to  get  into  position  to  defeat  each  other  in  a  trial 
of  strength. 

"Both  sides  w411  be  recruited  from  this  congregation. 

"Both  sides  will  convince  themselves  with  plausible  pleas 
that  they  are  contending  for  the  right. 

"Both  sides  w^ill  in  reality  throw  their  whole  weight  against 
the  kind  of  right  that  is  due  for  recognition  in  the  modern 
world;  and  both  wall  wage  the  fierce  fight  of  conscientious 
stupidity — for  what?  Why  the  net  outcome  of  your  fight 
will  be  simply  that  you  wnll  insure  another  lease  of  life  to 
the  miserable  regime  of  wrong! 

"During  one  of  our  recent  national  campaigns,  representa- 
tives of  the  different  parties  explained  briefly,  in  one  of  the 
leading  weekly  papers,  the  essence  of  their  respective  plat- 
forms. The  presidential  nominee  of  one  of  the  labor  paji.ies 
made  a  statement  which  at  least  proved  that  his  party  w^as 
endowed  with  its  share  of  our  common  human  nature.  The 
argument  amounted  to  these  three  claims: — 'First,  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  the  liberty  of  any  class  to  be  legislated  for  by  a 
class  whose  interests  are  antagonistic.  Second,  the  capital- 
ists are  now  legislating  for  the  laborers.  Third,  the  labor 
party  proposes  to  seize  political  powder  and  legislate  for  the 
capitali-sts.' 

"There  you  have  it!  It  is  not  the  w^age  earner  alone. 
With  different  degrees  of  tact  in  masking  our  egotism  we  are 
all  trs'ing  to  win  on  the  platform: — 'It  is  wrong  for  you  to 
regulate  me,  but  it  is  right  for  me  to  regulate  you !'  We  are 
all  fighting  for  this  policy.  And  we  w^onder  that  the  world 
is  no  more  prosperous  and  happy,  while  such  an  enlightened 
and  beneficent  conception  of  life  prevails! 

84 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PROPHET 


"I^abor  and  capital  do  not  devise  means  of  correcting  their 
partisan  claims  by  some  non-partisan  standard.  They  do 
not  ask,  'How  do  our  demands  as  separate  interests  look 
when  judged,  not  from  our  special  point  of  view,  but  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  whole  civilization  in  which  they  are 
incidents?'  Each  ignores  the  right  of  the  other  to  modify 
a  one-sided  conception  of  rights.  Each  party  isolates  itself, 
and  magnifies  its  separate  importance,  and  declares,  in  de- 
fiance of  all  the  world  'These  are  our  rights !  These  we  want ! 
Thase  we  will  have  1' 

"The  most  inconsistent  modern  immorality  is  provin- 
cialism. 

"Never  have  rivals,  interests,  competitors,  classes,  had  such 
manifold  effects  upon  one  another's  destinies. 

"Never  was  it  so  evident  that  equity  must  be  a  composite 
judgment,  in  which  conflicting  claims  are  impartially  rep- 
resented. 

"The  peculiar  social  task  of  our  era  is  to  install  the  mor- 
ality of  legislating  and  regulating  not  for  one  another  but 
with  one  another." 

Halleck  had  none  of  the  zealotry  which  flatters  itself  that 
the  world's  work  is  done  when  a  truth  is  told.  He  was  ad- 
dicted neither  to  belittling  his  own  division  of  labor  nor  to 
over-sanguine  hopes  of  visible  results.  While  he  was  putting 
all  his  resources  into  a  restatement  of  the  argument,  and  an 
appeal  for  recognition  of  the  moral  standard  it  presented, 
he  was  aware  of  a  certain  indifference  as  to  whether  or  not  any 
of  his  hearers  ever  gave  proof  of  having  taken  his  words  to 
heart.  He  had  at  all  events  clarified  his  own  mind.  He 
had  satisfied  himself  both  of  social  needs  and  of  social  ten- 
dencies. He  had  crystallized  his  liquid  conception  of  the 
radical  element  in  the  moral  problem,  and  he  had  reassured 
himself  of  the  mark  toward  which  his  own  efforts  must  con- 
verge. Whether  these  particular  hearers  carried  the  truth 
to  application  or  not,  he  had  fortified  his  own  faith  that  the 
truth  would  sometime  do  its  perfect  work. 


86 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   PHILANTHROPIST 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


VI 
THE   PHILANTHROPIST 

'No  one  remarked  that  prevention  before  the  accident,  or 
quick  action  afterwards,  would  have  been  worth  more 
than  the  cure  likely  to  be  effected  at  this  late  day." 


SUNDAY  noon  at  David  Lyon's  house  would  remind  a  New 
Englander  in  his  sixties  or  seventies  of  Thanksgiving  cel- 
ebrations in  his  youth.  Religion  and  domesticity  and  hos- 
pitality joined  in  a  genial  warmth  that  may  not  have  marked 
the  summit  of  social  attainment,  but  it  surely  presented  one 
of  the  fine  types  of  life. 

Sunday  was  Mr.  Lyon's  only  home  day.  He  wanted  his 
whole  family  around  him,  and  as  many  intimate  friends  be- 
side as  the  size  of  his  dining  room  would  permit.  The  num- 
ber this  time  was  smaller  than  usual,  for  it  included  only  the 
seven  persons  whom  Mr.  Lyon  claimed  as  the  members  of  his 
immediate  household.  Within  this  group  there  was  greater 
intimacy  and  freedom,  but  no  more  genuine  good  feeling 
than  a  guest  always  recognized  under  David  Lyon's  roof. 

The  Lyon  homestead  might  have  ranked  as  palatial  when 
it  was  built.  It  was  no  longer  among  the  more  pretentious 
residences  of  the  city.  It  was  designed  for  domestic  comfort, 
rather  than  for  display  or  elaborate  entertainment.  A  stand- 
ard of  utility  that  was  commonplace  in  kind,  but  liberal  in 
scale,  had  evidently  dictated  the  specifications. 

The  appointments  indicated  wealth  without  an  insistent 
standard  of  taste.  Except  in  the  case  of  furniture  bought  by 
the  set,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  assign  a  sufficient  artistic 
reason  for  the  presence  of  any  two  articles  of  use  or  ornament 
in  the  same  room.  The  furnishings  seemed  to  have  been 
selected  on  their  separate  merits,  and  to  have  been  assembled 
without  the  aid  of  esthetic  principles  that  could  have  been 
definitely  expressed.  Although  there  were  no  glaring  dishar- 
monies, the  passive  incongruity  would  have  produced  an  ef- 
fect upon  a  sensitive  taste  very  much  like  that  of  a  rich  and 
benevolent  person  without  manners. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lyon  were  choice  specimens  of  a  type  of 
arrested  development  especially  frequent  among  Americans. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


Tlieir  material  prosperity  liad  overtaxed  (heir  iiua<j;inatioii. 
Their  perscnial  expenchtures  had  V)y  no  means  increased  in 
the  ratio  of  Mr.  Lyon's  ^ain  of  ineome,  hnt  tlie  ehan,c;es  in 
tlieir  demands  upon  life  were  much  more  conspicuous  in 
(|uantity  than  in  quality.  While  Mr.  Lyon's  business  had 
been  a  laro;e  factor  in  creating  the  new  industrial  era  in  the 
I'nited  States;  while  he  was  commercially  not  only  a  product 
but  a  producer  of  the  times;  his  ideas  of  the  relations  between 
person  and  person  showed  only  the  faintest  ]ierccption  of  the 
channes  that  had  occurred  in  social  conditions. 

Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lyon  had  been  faithfully  schooled  in 
the  elementary  principles  of  integrity  with  equals  and  charity 
towards  inferioi*?.  Their  social  conceptions  dated  from  the 
period  when  there  wa.s  no  di.^^pute  that  indu.>try,  and  honesty, 
and  thrift,  and  fair  dealing  were  infallible  niean.s  of  success 
for  all,  because  all  were  supposed  to  have  equal  opportunity 
to  practice  these  virtues.  Their  personal  observance  of  the 
code  which  they  had  learned  in  childhood  was  not  from  fear, 
but  from  reverence  and  love.  They  had  high-minded  pleas- 
ure in  the  duties  which  their  sense  of  honor  prescribed. 

If  they  had  been  told  that  the  world  had  been  transformed 
since  the  morality  which  they  inherited  had  taken  shape,  they 
would  have  said  that  it  could  not  possibly  have  been  a  change 
which  made  wrong  right  or  right  wrong.  With  them  this 
would  not  have  been  a  quibble,  but  to  their  best  knowledge 
and  belief  a  good  and  sufficient  answer  to  all  suggestions  that 
obligation  might  be  made  more  liljeral  or  more  exacting.  Tf 
it  had  still  been  urged  that  the  difference  between  people  of 
a  century  or  two  ago,  and  modern  men,  was  like  the  contrast 
between  a  population  of  primitive  farmers,  each  peaceably 
providing  for  his  own  wants,  with  little  dependence  upon  the 
rest,  and  the  same  population  organized  a-  an  army  to  repel 
invasion,  each  dependent  upon  all  the  othei-s  for  hope  of  life 
and  happiness;  they  would  have  been  honestly  unable  to  see 
any  propriety  in  the  comparison.  The  world  had  grown  more 
complex,  of  course.  There  were  greater  inequalities.  But 
these  simply  corresponded  to  actual  differences  in  diligence 
and  prudence.  They  allowed  for  a  certain  modicum  of  my.s- 
terious  misfortune,  but  they  were  convinced  that,  with  this  ex- 
ception, rewards  and  merits  on  the  whole  corresponded,  as 
they  always  had  and  as  they  always  must. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


They  were  equally  candid  in  l.hi^i  view,  and  they  held  it 
with  equal  firnmess,  but  there  was  an  obtrusive  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  sorts  of  evidence  on  which  their  faith  reposed. 
Mr.  Lyon  frankly  claimed  that  he  had  built  up  his  fortune 
by  his  own  efforts,  without  help  from  anybody.  Ilis  success 
seemed  to  him  merely  a  case  of  Providence  protecting  its 
credit.  No  one  who  knew  him  questioned  his  exceptional 
ability ;  few  doubted  that  he  had  earned  his  success ;  and  only 
here  and  there  an  extremist  challenged  his  right  to  all  he  had. 

Measured  by  the  same  standard,  his  wife  was  entitled  to 
the  rewards  of  fidelity  in  a  comparatively  humble  X)osition ; 
but  a  thousand  women  whose  personal  da^ert  quite  equalled 
hers,  still  earned  merel}^  the  modest  wages  of  employments 
like  that  which  she  resigned  to  become  the  second  Mrs.  Lyon. 
Whether  their  rate  of  return  for  service  or  hers  was  in  pro- 
portion to  merit,  the  excess  or  deficit  in  the  other  case  was 
sufficient  to  confirm  the  incredulous  in  distrust  of  the  theory. 

The  work  of  the  future  ]\Irs.  Lyon  as  head  of  a  sub-depart- 
ment in  one  of  the  large  down-town  stores  had  been  highly 
valued  l)y  her  employers,  and  it  was  altogether  to  her  credit 
until,  after  her  marriage,  she  fell  into  the  bathos  of  being 
ashamed  of  her  former  occupation.  Her  aggressive  anxiety 
to  make  people  forget  it,  not  only  kept  the  fact  fresh  in  their 
memory,  but  it  sharpened  criticism  of  other  traits  that  might 
have  been  overlooked.  If  she  had  shown  the  genuine  pride 
in  having  earned  her  living  as  a  business  woman  that  her 
husband  did  in  his  advance  from  small  beginnings,  her  other 
qualities  might  have  conquered  most  of  the  doubts  about 
her  fitness  for  her  present  position.  She  really  had  all  the 
homely  virtues  except  indomitable  simplicity.  She  would 
have  been  a  model  wife  for  a  man  whose  income  was  not  large 
enough  to  intoxicate  her  sense  of  importance.  Promoted  sud- 
denly to  opportunity  for  which  she  was  untrained  and  unpre- 
pared, she  remained  true  to  her  previous  convictions,  but  she 
deplorably  failed  to  bring  consistent  order  and  proportion 
into  the  confusion  of  values  among  which  her  choices  now 
had  to  be  made. 

Her  only  child,  Chester,  more  generally  known  as  "Buck." 
now  eighteen  years  old,  was  already  cited  rather  freely  as  the 
legitimate  result  of  Mrs.  Lyon's  limitations.  His  father  had 
been  too  much  preoccupied  to  concern  himself  directly  with 
the  boy's  education.     Left  entirely  to  maternal  discretion, 

91 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


he  had  iv^scrted  his  indopcndcnco  ahiiost  from  the  cradle,  and 
had  never  learned  the  rudiments  of  respect  for  any  authority 
l)ut  his  own  will.  He  had  rapidly  lengthened  the  radius  of 
his  freedom  by  artful  use  of  the  endless  chain  "all  the  fel- 
lows." and  ''everybody."  The  cumulative  effect  of  assumino; 
the  sanction  of  all  for  what  was  approved  by  none,  ])lain]y 
marked  the  bunch  chiefly  of  rich  men's  sons  in  which  Buck 
lx>th  led  and  followed.  Because  the  parents  of  each  lacked  in- 
dependence to  obey  their  better  judgment,  their  combined 
timidity  amounted  to  a  conspiracy  to  defeat  their  unorgan- 
ized scruples. 

The  fallacy  and  the  pathos  of  Mrs.  Lyon's  whole  misman- 
agement of  her  son  lay  in  allowing  him  to  presume  upon  the 
external  results  of  his  father's  success,  instead  of  grounding 
him  in  the  elements  of  purpose  and  habit  which  had  made 
the  success  possible.  By  permitting  Buck  to  grow  up  without 
the  discipline  of  responsibility,  Mrs.  Lyon  had  inverted  the 
process  of  heredity,  and  although  she  was  still  fondly  unsus- 
picious, he  was  already  far  advanced  along  lines  of  moral 
reversion. 

Mr.  Lyon's  other  two  children  had  w^elcomed  his  second 
marriage.  Logan  was  already  in  college,  and  Edith  in  an 
eastern  preparatory  school.  They  had  known  Miss  "Williams 
as  Secretary  of  the  Sunday  School,  and  as  a  prominent  worker 
in  other  church  organizations,  and  the  choice  seemed  to  them 
ideal.  Edith  was  four  years  younger  than  Logan,  and  after 
her  graduation  at  Vassar  she  had  studied  music  two  years  in 
Europe.  With  the  exception  of  the  year  before  her  marriage, 
she  had  been  at  home  only  during  parts  of  her  vacations,  and 
as  her  brother  was  absent  still  more,  their  relations  to  their 
stepmother  had  quite  easily  adjusted  themselves  on  a  cousinly 
basis. 

Edgerly  w^is  the  brother  of  Edith  Lyon's  college  chum. 
He  had  been  an  instructor  three  or  four  years  at  Yale,  and 
was  in  Berlin  getting  ready  for  his  first  semester,  when  the 
party  containing  the  two  girls  arrived.  During  the  two  fol- 
lowing years,  he  found  it  convenient  to  act  as  their  courier  in 
vacations,  and  .soon  after  Edith's  return  the  engagement  was 
announced.  They  were  married  a  year  later,  after  Edgerly 
had  taken  his  Doctor's  degree  in  Berlin.  Meanwhile  he  had 
been  advanced  to  a  higher  position  at  Yale,  and  they  had 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


lived  in  New  Haven  until  Edgerly  accepted  the  call  to 
Chicago. 

Mr.  Lyon  had  not  yet  returned  from  church,  and  the  sixth 
member  of  the  group  in  the  library  was  evidently  the  focus 
of  attention.  Hester  Kinzie  was  hardly  midway  in  her  twen- 
ties, but  the  manner  of  the  others  toward  her  was  an  uncer- 
tain compromise  between  tolerance  of  youthfulness  and  def- 
erence to  seniority.  A  casual  glance  would  have  gathered  the 
impression  that  here  was  a  girl  who  had  herself  excellently 
well  in  hand.  Continued  inspection  would  bring  into  relief 
the  fine  poise;  the  secure  self-possession,  with  entire  efface- 
ment  of  self-consciousness;  the  rare  combination  of  repose 
with  vigilant  attention  and  stimulating  sympathy.  Perhaps 
more  notable  still  was  her  economy  of  physical  effort.  She 
ran  the  gamut  of  emotion  from  grave  to  gay,  in  harmony 
with  the  others,  but  all  her  effects  were  produced  with  a  ret- 
icence of  tone,  of  gesture,  of  expression,  that  was  almost 
telepathic. 

One  might  have  written  down  all  these  observations  with- 
out having  thought  to  propose  that  first  question  in  the  cate- 
chism of  womanhood,  was  she  beautiful  ?  More  than  this,  one 
might  have  neglected  to  review  the  evidence  on  the  subject 
without  counting  the  oversight  an  important  omission.  Na- 
ture might  or  might  not  have  endowed  her  with  beauty.  Cul- 
ture had  certainly  enriched  her  with  charms  that  were  more 
subtly  attractive. 

Hester  Kinzie  was  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Lyon's  lifelong 
friend,  one  of  the  original  organizers  of  the  Avery  Company. 
She  did  not  remember  her  mother,  but  from  her  earliest  rec- 
ollection she  had  been  her  father's  companion.  He  had  re- 
mained until  his  death  a  nominal  member  of  the  board  of  di- 
rectors of  the  company,  but  had  retired  from  active  business 
shortly  after  the  death  of  his  wife.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
Williams  College,  and  though  he  had  rapidly  accumulated  a 
large  fortune,  he  often  said  that  if  nature  intended  him  for 
money-making  Mark  Hopkins  had  vetoed  the  arrangement. 
He  had  a  scholar's  tastes,  with  discernment  enough  to  be 
aware  that  he  lacked  the  modern  scholar's  equipment.  But 
he  was  not  equally  limited  in  his  fitness  to  teach.  From  the 
time  that  he  gave  up  business  he  devoted  himself  to  his  daugh- 
ter's education.  They  travelled  constantly,  and  studied  to- 
gether the  subjects  which  he  approved,  with  the  exception  of 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     PHILANTHROPIST 


ilie  languages,  lie  found  that  she  could  acquire  them  so 
readily  tliat  it  would  be  an  injustice  to  lianiper  her  by  keeping 
to  the  methods  which  he  found  necessary  for  himself. 

As  long  as  she  could  rememl)cr,  b<ith  Ilester  and  her  father 
had  spoken  of  Mr.  Lyon  as  their  guardian.  He  had  always 
held  Mr.  Kinzie's  jiroxies  for  all  pury)oses  that  required  them, 
and  he  was  the  executor  of  his  friend's  estate, 

Ilester  had  not  visited  Chicago  since  her  father  died,  a  lit- 
tle more  than  a  year  before.  Logan  Lyon  had  always  regarded 
her  a.s  a  veiy  entertaining  child.  He  had  romped  with  her,  and 
hectored  lier.  and  always  called  her  "Gypsy,"  without  taking 
notice  that  the  girl  gave  promise  of  becoming  a  rarely  notable 
woman.  Th(>  [)romise  had  not  been  so  visibly  in  the  way  of 
fulfillment  when  he  last  saw  her,  but  he  was  now  aware  that 
a  transformation  had  occurred,  though  he  did  not  at  once 
realize  its  extent. 

Several  years  earlier,  when  Edgerly  first  saw  Hester,  his 
wife  had  asked  his  impression  of  her.  At  first  he  tried  to  get 
oft"  with  the  reply  that  youthful  prodigies  always  appealed  to 
his  pity.  After  further  urging  he  admitted  that  her  varie- 
gated hues  would  be  fascinating  if  they  were  not  uncanny. 
Finding  that  his  wife  would  not  be  satisfied  until  he  spoke 
with  some  show  of  seriousness,  he  said  that  he  would  not  ven- 
ture to  label  Hester  without  further  study ;  but  at  present  she 
appeared  to  be  a  rather  volatile  compound  of  Puritan  tradi- 
tion, Parisian  taste,  German  mental  affinity,  and  Salvation 
Army  practice.  Perhaps  the  only  change  that  he  had  since 
seen  reason  to  make  in  the  analysis  w'as  substitution  of  the 
term  stable  for  volatile. 

When  Mr.  Lyon  came  in,  it  was  like  the  appearance  of 
Santa  Glaus  clean  shaven.  lie  had  been  to  the  West  Side  to 
vi.sit  a  family  in  trouble,  and  he  seemed  to  be  enjoying  some 
of  the  su})erior  happiness  of  giving. 

Dinner  had  been  waiting,  and  was  at  once  announced.  Mr. 
Lyon  asked  the  blessing  wath  phrase  and  fervor  that  were 
rather  rare  survivals  from  another  generation.  Then  he  be- 
gan at  once  to  tell  of  the  errand  from  which  he  had  just 
returned. 

The  Charity  Organization  Society  had  discovered  a  man 
and  his  wife  entirely  destitute,  and  so  sick  that  neither  could 
help  the  other.  In  tracing  their  record  it  was  found  that  the 
man  had  been  for  fifteen  years  a  .^killed  laborer  in  the  employ 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


of  the  Avery  Company.  An  accident,  caused  by  the  careless- 
ness or  incompetence  of  another  workman,  had  injured  liim 
so  severely  that  when  he  recovered  he  w^as  no  longer  capable 
of  filling  his  former  place,  and  nothing  else  was  offered  him 
by  his  employers.  When  he  was  sent  to  the  Company's  hos- 
pital, he  had  to  sign  a  release  of  all  claims  against  the  Com- 
pany. For  half  a  dozen  years  both  he  and  his  wife  had  kept 
busy  at  any  work  they  could  find,  and  so  far  [is  the  neigh- 
bors knew  they  had  not  suffered,  until  sickness  had  made 
tliem  helpless. 

Mr.  Lyon  told  how  he  had  verified  the  story  of  the  day 
before,  and  had  sent  a  visiting  nurse  with  instructions  to  pro- 
vide everything  immediately  needed  by  the  couple.  After 
inspecting  their  surroundings  himself,  he  had  made  arrange- 
ments to  move  them  to  the  Presbyterian  Hospital.  The 
physician  whom  the  nurse  called  had  assured  him  that  proper 
nourishment  for  a  few  weeks  was  the  chief  element  in  the 
treatment  indicated  to  restore  their  normal  condition. 

No  one  remarked  that  prevention  before  the  accident,  or 
quick  action  afterwards,  would  have  been  worth  more  than 
the  cure  likely  to  be  effected  at  this  late  day.  The  thought 
may  have  been  prompted,  and  possibly  it  recurred  in  veiled 
form  a  few  moments  later. 

Mr.  Lyon  assumed  that  the  couple  were  to  be  put  on  their 
feet  again,  both  physically  and  industrially.  Mrs.  Lyon  was 
no  le.'^s  eager  than  he  to  work  out  ways  and  means  fo^th^^'ith. 
and  they  pursued  the  subject  so  intently  that  at  last  Mrs. 
Edgerly  interposed  the  query  if  it  would  not  be  the  regular 
procedure  to  appoint  a  chairman  and  secretary  and  take 
stenographic  minutes. 

The  hint  was  received  with  a  sigh  of  relief  by  all,  not  ex- 
cepting Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lyon.  Logan  quickly  followed  it  up 
with  a  challenge  to  Hester.  Even  as  a  child  her  ideas  had 
always  amused  him,  but  he  was  beginning  to  take  notice  that 
she  had  a  point  of  view  which  might  yield  something  more 
than  diversion.  He  tried  to  adopt  his  customary  tone,  but  in 
spite  of  himself  respectful  qualification  tempered  former  con- 
descension, as  he  remarked : — ''I  was  vrondering,  iSIiss  Gypsy. 
whether  we  should  get  some  new  readings  of  our  palms  this 
trip." 

Without  turning  her  eyes  from  the  figure  she  was  exam- 
ining in  the  table-cloth,  Hester  answered  musingly: — "Oh 

95 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


no;  alles  blciht  beim  Alfeii.  All  Chicago  is  still  divided  into 
throe  ch\;?sos;  the  niiichine-tenders.  the  want-to-be-machiiie- 
ti'iiders,  and  the  e?caj)od-from-beino;-nuichine  tenders." 

"You  credit  lis  then  with  a  few  escapes?"  returned  I^yon. 

"  'Credit'  is  your  own  version,"  answered  I  Fester,  fixing  on 
him  a  comical  expression  of  surprise.  "I  should  say  it  is  like 
the  canary's  escape  from  the  cage.  The  first  two  classes  are 
in  the  way  of  salvation,  thanks  to  having  their  wants.  The 
othei"s  are  more  lost  than  before,  because  they  don't  know 
what  they  want." 

"Yet  some  of  the  canaries  enjoy  their  freedom,"  ventured 
Mrs.  Lyon. 

"Yes,  in  their  fluttering  little  fashion,"  continued  Hester, 
as  though  dropping  again  into  meditation,  "but  on  the  whole 
isn't  enjoyment  much  less  in  evidence  than  bewilderment?" 

Mrs.  Edgerly  was  sure  Hester  was  turning  over  in  her  mind 
something  worth  hearing,  if  she  could  be  provoked  to  utter  it. 
To  furnish  a  random  stimulus  she  interposed,  with  a  mild  af- 
fectation of  anxiety: — "Promise  me,  Hester,  that  you  will 
prepare  our  minds  gradually,"  before  you  shake  our  republican 
dust  from  your  feet  to  transfer  your  allegiance  to  an  effete 
monarchy." 

The  only  sign  that  Hester  was  taking  up  the  aggressive 
might  have  been  found  in  the  somewhat  irrelevant  abrupt- 
ness of  her  answer:  "Isn't  modern  royalty  more  democratic 
than  modern  riches?" 

"Does  the  key  go  with  the  cipher?"  inquired  Mr.  Lyon  in- 
dulgently. 

"It's  easier  than  the  prospectus  of  Esperanto,"  chirped  Hes- 
ter, turning  upon  him  a  curiously  confidential  expression, 
which  left  everybody  uncertain  whether  she  was  in  earnest 
or  simply  preparing  to  tease  her  guardian.  "Isn't  the  king 
today  the  chief  worker  in  the  settlement?  Isn't  he  a  trained 
specialist  in  public  service?  Isn't  he  the  most  representative 
citizen?  Isn't  he  a  sort  of  digest  of  the  life  of  the  people? 
Isn't  he  not  only  the  symbol  of  the  State,  but  the  most  active 
unifying  agent?  Isn't  the  modern  rich  man  his  opposite  at 
all  points?  Doesn't  he  work  people  instead  of  working  with 
them?  Does  he  soil  his  hands  wdth  public  service?  Isn't  he 
an  exception,  instead  of  a  specimen?  Doesn't  he  make  him- 
self a  spectator,  instead  of  taking  his  part  as  a  plain  man?  On 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


the  whole,  doesn't  he  do  more  to  divide  society  than  to  unite 
it?" 

"Really,  Miss  Gypsy,"  groaned  Logan,  with  a  fair  imita- 
tion of  dejection,  "this  is  too  much  of  a  disappointment.  You 
are  billed  to  be  original  or  nothing.  These  recitations  out  of 
the  Anarchists'  Handbook  will  ruin  your  reputation." 

Still  looking  at  the  father,  as  though  wishing  to  confine 
her  attention  to  him,  Hester  answered  parenthetically,  "Re- 
member, Logan,  you  didn't  ask  me  for  news,  but  merely  to 
read  your  palms.  A  real  seeress  nmst  be  truthful  though  tire- 
some." 

Mrs.  Lyon  never  had  toleration  for  flippancy  on  such  a 
subject.  Irreverence  at  this  point  seemed  to  her  to  threaten 
the  gold  of  the  altar.  Following  so  close  upon  the  evidence 
to  the  contrary,  in  the  plans  they  had  just  discussed,  these  re- 
flections seemed  to  her  especially  unkind.  She  usually 
avoided  disagreement  with  Hester.  She  had  a  dread  of  mis- 
taking play  for  earnest,  and  her  distrust  of  her  own  sense  of 
humor  perhaps  made  her  interpret  the  obvious  in  Hester  as 
mystery.  This  time,  however,  although  she  suspected  that 
her  reply  left  much  to  be  desired,  both  as  to  novelty  and  con- 
clusiveness, she  took  the  risk,  before  any  one  else  could 
answer. 

"But,  Hester,  you  forget  the  millions  of  dollars  given  to 
charity  in  the  United  States  every  year." 

"I  didn't  forget  them.  Aunt  Jenny,"  Hester  began  sooth- 
ingly. "Some  of  the  blessedest  dollars  in  the  world  are  among 
them."  Then  returning  to  the  more  impersonal  aspects  of 
the  subject : — "Some  of  them  too  are  the  same  snobocratic  dol- 
lars I  had  in  mind.  Their  image  and  superscription  make 
me  wonder  if  modern  royalty  isn't  more  human  than  mod- 
ern riches.  We  sit  on  our  thrones  and  command  the  Grand 
Vizier  of  the  Bank  Account  to  scatter  largesses,  but  Ahasuerus 
and  all  his  ancient  kind  did  that.  It's  not  modern  at  all. 
While  the  up-to-date  king  devotes  his  life  to  finding  out  what 
his  people  need,  and  working  harder  than  any  of  them  to  get 
it,  aren't  we  the  American  rich  spending  our  money  like 
nabobs  for  anyone  we  can  patronize,  but  do  we  any  more  make 
common  cause  with  people  outside  our  financial  class  than  we 
take  our  cook  into  our  box  the  first  night  of  the  opera?" 

Edgerly  was  beginning  to  suspect  that  Hester  was  much 
deeper  than  an  impressionist;  and  he  was  highly  edified  by 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     PHILANTHROPIST 


the  eflVct  oi'  hor  lierec^y  on  both  Mr.  and  Mi's.  Lyon.  For  men- 
tal and  |thy^;ii'al  cures  aUke  however,  he  believed  in  ninety- 
nine  parts  nature  to  one  of  medicine.  At  the  present  moment 
he  judged  that  the  dose  already  admhiistered  miftht  be 
enough  for  a  single  treatment,  and  that  a  diversion  might  be 
in  the  line  of  good  i>olicy  as  well  a<  good  fellowship.  With 
a  glance  at  Mi's.  Lyon,  for  her  permis.-ion  to  interrupt  the  ar- 
gument, he  volunteered  his  mediation. 

"It  hai!  occurred  to  me,  ]\Iiss  Kinzie,  that  Logan  got  hi.s 
references  mixed.  It  sounds  more  like  pUigiarism  from  this 
morning's  sermon." 

Edgerly  wiis  not  content  to  let  liis  father-in-law  drop  out 
of  the  convei-sation.  Few  families  more  rigidly  observed  the 
taboo  of  "shop"  in  the  household.  Fi'om  the  table  talk  a 
guest  would  seldom  be  able  to  place  Mr.  Lyon;  but  the  infer- 
ence would  almost  always  be  drawn  that  philanthropy  was 
his  chief  occupation.  Edgerly  reckoned  that  reference  to 
Halleck's  line  of  thought  was  an  approach  to  forbidden 
ground,  and  that  it  would  call  for  a  defensive  movement. 
Mr.  Lyon  did  not  take  alarm,  however,  until  Hester  had 
tripped  blithely  acro.ss  the  danger  line.  She  more  than  half 
guessed  what  was  in  Edgerly's  mind.  She  had  been  privileged 
from  childhood  as  an  enfant  terrible  toward  her  guardian,  and 
since  she  had  arrived  at  ideas  of  her  own  she  had  often  turned 
the  role  to  serious  account.  With  the  carelessness  of  an 
ingenue  exchanging  banter  she  smiled  back  upon  Edgerly : — 

"Mr.  Halleck  and  I  have  merely  been  reading  the  same 
palms.  After  one  of  his  climaxes  I  retired  into  a  reverie,  and 
when  I  returned  I  fancied  he  had  been  saying,  'David  Lyon, 
you  are  one  of  the  best  men  in  the  world,  but  the  social  prob- 
lem is  how  to  get  you  into  moral  relations  with  your  help!" 

To  do  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lyon  justice,  their  imagination 
was  honestly  lost  in  the  attempt  to  put  a  workable  meaning 
into  Llalleck's  ideas.  The  only  direction  along  which  they 
could  see  any  hope  of  industrial  betterment,  w^as  through 
growth  of  intelligence  in  laborers  that  would  show  them  tiie 
neces.sity  of  trusting  the  superior  wisdom  of  employers.  To 
their  minds  the  wage  .system  was  a  part  of  the  order  of  nature 
no  less  than  the  changes  of  seasons.  The  application  to  Mr. 
Lyon  in  particular  seemed  so  extravagant  that  both  preferred 
to  take  it  as  a  facetious  way  of  retreating  from  the  charge  upon 
wealth  in  general. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


Mr.  Lyon's  patience  with  Hester's  escapades  of  opinion  was 
very  much  like  the  Kaiser's  snlierance  of  hi.s  daughter's  Hb- 
erties  with  imperial  dignity.  They  did  not  att'ect  him  as 
social  symj)toms,  but  merely  a.s  signs  of  girlish  detachment, 
from  the  real  world.  That  Halleck  should  put  arguments  into 
the  mouths  of  feministic  theori.st.s  was  another  matter;  yet  this 
was  a  subject  for  the  office,  not  for  the  family.  To  avoid  the 
trap,  he  chose  to  treat  Hester's  allusion  playfully. 

"I  heard  Mr.  Kissinger  say  yesterday  that  one  of  the  young 
women  in  the  office  wants  leave  of  absence  for  two  months,  to 
helj)  hei-  sister  get  ready  to  be  n)arried.  I  will  re(K)mmend 
you  for  the  position,  Hester,  and  you  can  see  what  an  ogre  I 
am  at  close  quarters." 

"Oh,  I've  no  doubt  you'd  be  so  nice  to  me  that  I  should 
quite  forget  the  personal  and  the  business  duality.  But  suppose 
I  should  join  the  Ofhce  Girls'  Protective  Union.  Wouldn't 
you  say  I  was  trying  to  reverse  divine  foreordination,  and 
wouldn't  you  boycott  me?" 

"Of  course,  if  you  should  conspire  against  me.  I  should 
have  to  defend  myself." 

"Would  my  Office  Girls'  Union  be  more  of  a  conspiracy 
against  you,  than  your  corporation  laws,  and  your  community 
of  interests  among  capitalists  would  against  me?" 

"I  will  answer  allegorically,  Hester.  Suppose  the  blades  of 
corn  in  some  farmer's  field  should  form  a  union  next  Spring 
to  outwit  the  climate.  Suppose  they  agreed  to  grow  in  spite 
of  drought  when  rain  was  needed,  and  to  fill  out  fuller  ears 
than  usual  even  if  rain  fell  all  the  time  that  sunshine  was 
wanted.  What  would  you  think  of  the  prospects  of  the  union 
against  the  climate?" 

"They  would  strike  me  as  a  rather  forlorn  hope,  Uncle 
David,  but  I  wish  you  would  explain  the  allegory.  The 
blades  of  corn  represent ?" 

"Why  the  members  of  your  union,  with  your  easy  supe- 
rioritv  to  the  laws  of  business." 

"And  the  climate?" 

"The  climate  stands  for  business  of  course,  and  the  blades 
of  corn  must  conform  to  it." 

"You  didn't  mean  to  imply  that  the  employers  are  the 
climate?" 

"The  emplovers  understand  the  climate,  and  the  unions 
do  not." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PHILANTHROPIST 


"I  .<ee.  That  makes  the  alle.c;ory  very  striking.  If  I  had 
a  nirtsouline  niiiul,  I  suppose  I  should  he  convinced  forever, 
Uncle  David;  hut  as  I  haven't,  I'm  foolish  enough  to  im- 
agine that  something  may  still  be  said  for  the  unions.  Would 
you  mind  if  T  try  my  hand  at  an  allegory?" 

A  gentle  nuirmur  of  encouragement  circled  the  table,  and 
Hester  proceeded: — 

"One  fine  Spring  morning,  the  blades  of  corn  in  a  small 
patch,  in  one  corner  of  the  field,  put  their  heads  together  and 
decided  to  form  a  syndicate  to  control  irrigation.  They  said 
to  one  another,  'We  know  what  we  want,  and  the  rest  of  the 
field  doesn't  know  what  it  wants.  All  these  hills  of  corn  can't 
prosper  of  course.  There  isn't  material  enough  to  go  around. 
We  must  make  things  come  our  way.  We  will  keep  our- 
selves well  watered.  We  will  wash  plenty  of  soil  from  the  rest 
of  the  field,  if  necessary,  to  cover  our  roots,  but  any  way  we 
will  get  rich  and  fat.'  Would  it  be  so  awfully  unreasonable, 
Uncle  David,  for  the  rest  of  the  field  to  form  a  union,  while 
the  few  hills  were  organizing  their  syndicate?" 

The  air  of  artless  innocence  with  which  Hester  propounded 
the  dilemma  was  too  much  for  the  gra\dty  even  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Lyon.  Buck  had  been  inwardly  voting  the  whole  talk 
an  infernal  bore,  but  the  humor  of  the  la.st  turn  drew  him 
into  the  general  outburst  of  hilarity.  Mr.  Lyon  declared  that 
he  felt  like  sending  a  large  check  at  once  to  the  firemen's 
fund,  in  gratitude  for  the  narrow  escape  from  letting  such  a 
pyromaniac  into  his  office.  Logan  said  it  merely  went  to 
show  our  need  of  an  underground  route  to  Siberia;  and  Ed- 
gerly  submitted  that  they  had  all  guessed  wrong,  and  these 
were  advance  sheets  from  a  new  Communist  Manifesto. 

Hester  toyed  demurely  with  her  liqueur  glass,  and  reflected 
that  a  little  well  placed  irony  now  and  then  might  help  the 
world  move  on  as  much  as  many  a  ponderous  argument. 

While  the  others  were  returning  to  the  library.  Buck  took 
the  opportunity  to  extricate  himself,  with  the  notification  to 
his  mother,  "I  won't  be  home  very  early.  Tom  and  I  are 
going  to  take  two  of  the  girls  on  an  auto  ride." 


100 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   SAFE   AND   SANE 


THE    SAFE    AND    SANE 


VII 

THE   SAFE    AND  SANE 

"The  real  issue  is  this : — How  do  you  know  that  your  better 
judgment  hasn't  usurped  more  authority  than  it  is  entitled 
to  as  a  dictator  to  men  of  poorer  judgment?" 


AT  the  head  of  the  long  table  in  the  directors'  room,  the 
President  of  the  Company  was  dispatching  his  Monday 
morning's  work. 

He  might  have  been  described  as  a  twin  of  David  Lyon, 
with  reverse  English  upon  every  feature  that  made  his  brother 
lovable.  In  the  lines  of  his  face,  as  he  rapidly  disposed  of 
one  document  after  another,  not  a  mark  of  a  gentle  emotion 
could  be  detected.  He  was  following  a  routine,  with  no  more 
betrayal  of  sentiment  than  is  visible  in  a  machine.  After 
watching  and  listening  for  a  half-hour  to  his  curt  comments 
to  his  secretary  one  might  have  said  that  his  relentlessness 
in  action  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  the  strain  of  an  ex- 
press engine  making  up  time  lost  from  the  schedule. 

Yet  this  was  David  Lyon  in  his  business  character.  Not 
dishonest,  not  dishonorable,  not  unscrupulous,  he  was  simply 
unequivocal  in  his  purpose,  and  unswerving,  uncompromis- 
ing, inflexible  in  its  pursuit.  He  accepted  the  working  world 
as  a  scheme  of  order  as  unvarying  and  inevitable  as  the  har- 
mony of  the  spheres.  The  Newtonian  law  of  this  system  was, 
Capitalize  all  the  wealth  you  can,  and  make  it  pay  every 
penny  of  dividends  it  will  produce.  The  general  limitations 
of  the  system  were  defined  by  the  statutes  and  the  recognized 
rules  of  competition.  Within  these  boundaries,  success  be- 
longed to  the  strongest  force. 

No  courts  would  have  been  needed  to  secure  his  observance 
of  these  restrictions  to  the  letter,  as  he  interpreted  them. 
David  Lyon's  word  was  always  as  good  as  his  contract.  But 
honor,  as  he  understood  it,  required  rigid  respect  for  the  rules 
no  more  than  pitiless  use  of  the  power  of  economic  resources. 
It  would  be  burying  talents  in  the  earth  to  permit  embarrass- 
ment of  business  by  sentimental  considerations.  His  whole 
ofiice  philosophy  was  once  packed  into  a  remark  to  Edgerly : — 
"We  can't  go  into  battle  without  losing  killed  and  wounded. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SAFE     AND     SANE 


hut  wc  must  will  the  li.ij;ht  first  and  attend  to  tlioiii  aftonvardn. 
^^'ho^  liunian  synipatliirs  obstruct  the  operation  of  business 
})rin(ii»les,  they  are  as  much  out  of  phice  as  lace  curtains  and 
bric-a-brac  in  a  foundry.'' 

The  dillicult  tinn^  to  nnderstaiul  was  not  Ibo  iiiakc-n|)  of 
Mr.  Lyon's  two  selves,  but  that  he  had  never  been  disturberl 
by  the  contni^^^t  between  them.  lie  serenely  accepted  the  ben(>f- 
icent  provision  of  nature  which  divided  life  into  personal  and 
impersonal  part.s,  the  former  of  which  subsisted  upon  crumbs 
from  the  table  of  the  latter. 

Perhaps  more  anomalous  still,  in  a  man  of  his  tyy^e,  Avas  the 
fact  that  his  partial  suspension,  in  practice,  of  the  funda- 
mental law  ''cai)italize,"  was  not  in  accordance  with  a  definite 
fornuda.  lie  was  liberal  in  his  cx))enditures,  and  <ienerous 
in  his  p;ifts.  but  this  did  not  alter  the  material  fact.  In  prin- 
ciple, his  personal  life  w;l<  not  the  ma.'^ter  but  the  pensioner 
of  his  economic  life,  and  he  had  never  attempted  to  account 
for  the  ratio  of  withdrawal  from  possible  capital,  and  transfer 
to  bounty,  which  his  business  self  permitted  his  personal  self 
to  administer.  The  truth  was  that  these  haljitual  concessions 
to  the  larrjcr  life  represented  ideas  and  inflnence-s  which  flatly 
contradicted  his  business  theory. 

If  he  had  been  a  philosopher,  ^\v.  Lyon  would  have  been 
a  puzzle  to  himself.  lie  would  have  seen  that  there  was  irre- 
pressible conflict  between  the  two  divisions  of  life  which  his 
workinw  scheme  created;  and  the  conflict  would  have  pre- 
sented itself  to  him  as  either  comedy  or  tragedy.  Whichever 
alternative  he  chose  he  would  have  had  the  curiosity  to  run 
down  the  contradiction,  and  to  discover  where  the  mistake 
wiis  located  which  made  his  life  revolve  about  two  centres  in- 
stead of  one.  Since  he  w^as  not  a  philosopher,  but  merely  a 
matter-of-fact  man,  he  cared  for  none  of  these  things; 
and  instead  of  struggling  to  merge  his  antithetic  selves  into  a 
unity,  he  held  them  apart,  dividing  his  time  betw^een  them, 
and  turn  for  turn  he  was  as  conscientious  about  the  program 
of  the  one  as  of  the  other. 

It  was  Mr.  Lyon's  habit  to  do  hi.-  loutine  work  in  the  direc- 
tors' room,  in  preference  to  his  private  office;  and  for  two 
rea.'v)ns.  In  the  first  ])lace,  there  was  the  comfort  and  conve- 
nience of  the  larger  space.  This  was  the  reason  which  he  gave 
to  others.  In  the  second  place,  in  the  directors'  room  he  could 
more  easily  imagine  himself  reaching  out  to  touch  every  de- 

106 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SAFE    AND     SANE 


tail  of  the  company'.s  operations.  He  had  more  of  the  feel- 
ing of  the  Captain  on  the  bridge,  and  of  the  Connnander  at 
stafV-lieadqnarten-!.  lie  could  fancy  that  all  his  heads  of  de- 
partment;^ were  present.  This  wa.**  the  reason  which  he  gave 
to  himself.  He  would  have  been  ashamed  to  confess  it,  for 
it  wa.s  the  one  intrusion  of  sentiment  which  he  had  not  barred 
from  the  premises. 

The  customary  order  of  business  filled  the  first  i)art  of  thc 
forenoon,  with  no  incident  to  show  that  anything  unusual 
wtis  in  tlie  aii'.  According  to  the  newspapei-s,  the  program 
predicted  by  Kissinger,  and  talked  over  by  Mr.  Lyon  and 
Logan  after  diimer  the  d<iy  before,  h;id  been  endorsed  by  the 
unions,  and  a  delegation  had  been  authorized  to  make  formal 
presentation  of  the  demands  to  the  Company.  No  directors' 
meeting  had  been  called,  because  the  situation  presented  no 
problem  that  had  not  already  been  settled  in  principle ;  unless 
it  was  the  question  whether  an  interview  should  be  granted 
to  a  delegation  submitting  such  an  unthinkable  proposition. 
As  notification  that  an  interview  was  desired  had  not  been  re- 
ceived, there  was  no  hurry  to  decide  how  it  should  be  treated. 

The  special  program  of  the  day  was  to  set  in  motion  the 
offensive  and  defensive  plans  Avhich  had  been  worked  out  in 
anticipation  of  labor  disturbance.  Certain  large  orders  for 
material  had  to  be  suspended ;  customers  were  warned  that  the 
strike  clause  in  their  contract*  w;i.s  likely  to  become  operative; 
pending  arrangements  with  the  banks  were  to  be  closed,  and 
in  j^articular,  the  necessary  steps  had  to  be  taken  to  put  in 
readiness  the  campaign  r&sources  of  the  different  associations 
that  were  pledged  to  maintain  the  employers'  side  of  the 
fight. 

Until  after  business  hours  there  had  been  hardly  a  moment 
of  relief  from  hard  work  for  the  administrative  officers.  The 
lunch  hour  at  their  clubs  had  been  nearly  as  busy  as  the  floor 
of  the  Board  of  Trade  during  a  break  in  the  market.  The  di- 
rectors had  been  coming  and  going  all  day,  and  now,  after  the 
doors  were  closed,  half  a  dozen  of  them  were  gathered  around 
the  long  table  to  talk  over  the  outlook  at  their  leisure. 

At  this  moment  Mr.  Lyon  would  have  been  an  ideal  pose 
for  Napoleon  at  Austerlitz,  during  the  legendary  twenty  min- 
utes when  he  held  his  Marshals  in  leash  while  the  allies  were 
completing  their  false  movement.     He  expected  a  terrific 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     SAFE     AND     SANE 


fijj:ht,  but  ho  had  made  his  dispositions  so  carefully  that  he 
was  ahsoiutciy  confident.  He  was  so  pleased  with  the  day's 
work  that  he  had  almost  permitted  his  face  to  resume  its 
human  version. 

When  the  talk  turned  from  what  had  been  done,  to  the 
question  of  attitude  toward  the  sti'ikers'  (lei)ulati()n.  it  was 
quickly  evident  that  this  transformation  was  premature.  At 
mention  of  the  defiance  which  was  to  be  Hung  at  the  Com- 
pany, Avith  tho  underlying  provocation  of  implied  contempt 
for  business  principles,  Mr.  Lyon's  features  instantly  con- 
tracted into  a  hard,  stern,  almost  fierce  expression,  that  w^ould 
have  satisfied  a  rather  rigorous  conception  of  a  headsman. 
Bringing  both  fists  down  heavily  upon  the  table,  he  exclaimed, 
^N-ith  a  vehemence  of  which  few  knew  him  to  be  capable,  "One 
thing  is  certain  !  You  will  never  catch  me  demeaning  myself 
by  a  parley  with  these  freebooters!" 

Most  of  the  group  represented  primarily  the  bankers', 
rather  than  the  employers'  viewpoint,  and  they  w^ere  inclined 
toward  a  more  conciliatory  policy.  They  argued  that  it  was 
a  mere  matter  of  form  anyway.  They  said  it  would  do  no 
hurt  to  be  polite  to  these  men.  They  thought  it  might  even 
modify  the  animus  of  tho  struggle  if  the  Company  should 
avoid  insolence  in  the  beginning. 

Mr.  Lyon  came  back  at  them  savagely.  "Is  it  insolence  not 
to  ask  a  man  to  walk  into  your  parlor,  when  he  advertises  in 
advance  that  his  errand  is  bribery  or  blackmail?  Politeness 
has  its  place,  and  some  of  it  might  be  judicious  if  we  were  just 
at  present  doing  detectives'  work.  But  I  draw  the  line  on 
politeness  to  the  man  that  asks  me  to  be  his  accomplice  in 
crime.  You  propose  to  bandy  words  with  an  illegal  conspir- 
acy. That  would  give  these  bandits  the  advantage  of  being 
treated  as  though  they  had  a  right  to  negotiate.  It  would  give 
away  our  whole  case  if  we  should  admit  that  they  are  entitled 
to  a  hearing.  No!  gentlemen.  A  burglar  may  break  into 
my  house  at  his  own  peril,  but  he  will  never  get  a  chance  to 
sit  down  before  my  fireplace  and  discuss  terms  of  immunity. 
The  scouts  of  these  outlaw^s  may  wave  their  flag  of  truce  till 
it  rots.  The  only  recognition  they  will  ever  get  from  David 
Lyon  will  be  a  volley !" 

Logan  Lyon  had  been  pacing  slowly  around  the  table,  in 
the  rear  of  the  animated  circle.  None  of  the  talk  had  es- 
caped him,  but  he  had  been  thinking  of  Halleck,  and  Hester 

108 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SAFE    AND     SANE 


Kinzie ;  and  it  was  a  relief  from  the  grim  tension  of  the  day's 
schedule  to  look  at  it  in  the  sort  of  colored  light  that  he  just 
at  present  associated  with  those  persons. 

So  far  as  Lyon  was  aware,  his  object  in  turning  from  the 
practical  to  what  he  regarded  as  the  dilettantish,  was  amuse- 
ment, rather  than  anything  more  serious.  It  was  a  part  of 
the  "lighter  touch"  that  he  had  mentioned  to  Barclay.  It 
was  a  novel  sensation  to  assume  an  attitude  of  aloofness,  and 
to  scrutinize  business  as  an  unbiased  spectator.  It  gave  him  a 
feeling  of  self-possession  something  like  the  triumph  of  first 
ability  to  ride  a  bicycle  without  gripping  the  handle-bar. 
That  the  horizon  which  the  Company  made  for  itself  was  not 
the  largest  perspective  in  which  it  could  be  viewed  without 
taking  in  a  section  of  cloud-land,  was  almost  as  novel  a  reve- 
lation to  Lyon  as  the  fresh-air  fund  child's  discovery  that  the 
world  contains  groves,  and  streams,  and  meadows,  as  well  as 
pavements. 

The  new  mood  was  an  inclination  to  be  coltish.  From 
pure  mischief  Lyon  halted  at  the  foot  of  the  table,  and  for  the 
first  time  broke  into  the  conversation. 

"After  all,  Father,  don't  you  think  we're  a  little  like  the 
Quaker  whose  conscientious  scruples  against  war  couldn't 
keep  him  from  firing  just  where  the  enemy  stood?" 

The  blank  look  on  all  the  faces  at  the  table  told  Lyon  that 
he  had  not  scored;  and  he  acknowledged  to  himself  that  it 
was  a  rather  wild  shot.  After  his  father  had  answered,  in  a 
slightly  groping  tone,  that  he  didn't  see  the  point,  Logan 
tried  again. 

"While  you  have  been  throwing  bouquets  at  the  Company 
for  its  long-headed  preparations,  I've  been  wondering  how 
many  of  us  had  ever  caught  ourselves  thinking  that,  win  or 
lose,  the  whole  campaign  is  a  dodging  of  the  issue." 

Probably  no  one  present  would  have  found  anything  new 
in  such  a  reflection  from  a  literary  man,  or  a  social  agitator, 
but  the  source  and  the  surroundings  gave  it  the  effect  of  a 
cannon-cracker.  Any  remark,  however  unexpected,  that 
was  to  be  taken  literally  in  connection  with  a  business  propo- 
sition, would  have  met  ready  enough  answer  in  that  group ; 
but  this  suggestion  from  Logan  Lyon  was  a  complete  sur- 
prise. Every  one  was  caught  so  off  his  guard  that  for  several 
seconds  only  a  confused  gurgle  came  of  the  spasmodic  at- 
tempts to  articulate  before  thinking.    The  first  to  pull  him- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SAFE     AND     SANE 


self  to.m'tlier  cMi()ui;h  to  sense  the  spirit  of  (he  quoi'v  was  Kvaiis, 
I'residoiU  of  tlie  Fidelity  Trust  C'omij)any,  and  nearest  of  the 
nvniibcr  to  Logan's  age.  He  could  contribute  only  the  insin- 
uation, ''Docs  a,  hard  day's  work  always  rattle  you,  I^yon?" 

"On  the  contrary, "  Lyon  answered  jauntily,  "as  the  day's 
work  hasn't  called  on  ine  to  extend  myself,  I  need  the  exer- 
cise of  playing  the  devil's  advocate." 

"If  1  was  after  that  sort  of  exeii-ise,"  joined  in  Snclling. 
«)f  the  Home  National,  'M  should  wait  until  my  client  had  a 
case  with  at  least  a  few  technicalities  in  his  favor." 

"You  may  not  be  aware,  gentlemen,"'  continued  Lyon,  with 
mock  solenuiity,  and  seemingly  regardl&ss  of  the  comments, 
"that  I  am  considering  the  idea  of  employing  my  leisure  in 
writing  a  treatise  on  the  vices  of  modern  business." 

"On  the  principle  tliat  it  takes  a  rogue  to  catch  a  rogue?" 
demanded  Evans. 

"Exactly,"  followed  Lyon,  "the  confessions  of  a  converted 
capitalist." 

Nobody  in  the  room  could  make  out  what  Lyon  was  driv- 
ing at.  Jokes  were  not  good  form  in  the  Avery  oflfices,  even 
after  hours.  The  pre.^^umption  neither  of  jest  nor  of  earnest 
ofi'ered  a  plausible  clue.  Jf  Logan  Lyon  had  not  ranked  as 
one  of  the  keenest  minds  in  Chicago,  the  group  would  have 
been  disposed  to  think  he  was  gibbering.  As  he  w^as  never 
known  to  talk  without  saying  something,  the  topic  of  the  day 
was  dropped  and  the  curiosity  of  the  whole  company  turned 
to  the  enigma  he  had  sprung. 

Semi-officially,  rather  than  paternally,  and  as  a  caution 
against  crossing  the  line  of  levity,  Lyon  Senior  offered  the 
tentative  expostulation : — "It  is  to  be  presumed,  Logan,  that 
the  conf&Svsions  will  be  strictly  individual  rather  than  repre- 
sentative." 

"I  had  thought  it  would  be  a  good  plan  to  make  them  gen- 
eral, for  the  sake  of  .-seeing  how  my  fellow  sinners  would  plead 
to  the  indictment.  For  instance,  the  first  chapter  will  begin: 
'Everybody  knows  that  the  patriarchalism  of  modern  busi- 
ness is  untenable.'  " 

"You  might  save  making  a  show  of  youreelf,  by  assuming 
a  verdict  of  not  guilty  on  that  count,  and  throwing  it  out  of 
the  record,"  retorted  Evans.  He  was  quicker  than  the  others 
in  tracking  Lyon's  moves,  but  he  was  an  index  of  the  temper 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     SAFE    AND     SANE 


of  the  rest.  They  all  had  the  feeling  that  whatever  Lyon 
meant  it  was  entirely  uncalled  for,  and  perhaps  seditious. 

Paying  no  attention  to  the  disclaimer,  Lyon  continued: — 
"The  second  propo.sition  will  be :  'Even  the  interested  parties 
now  understand  that  the  superstition  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  was  merely  a  primitive  form  of  the  illusion  of  the  di- 
vine right  of  employers.'  " 

By  this  time  the  President  of  the  Company  was  really  un- 
easy. Under  any  circumstances  he  would  have  regarded  it  as 
beneath  the  dignity  of  the  head  of  the  legal  department  to  in- 
dulge in  such  extravagance.  In  a  crisis  like  the  present,  it 
pointed  either  to  deficient  sense  of  the  gravity  of  the  situation, 
or  to  nuiutal  vagaries  of  which  his  son  had  never  been  sus- 
pected. Not  in  anger,  but  certainly  in  sorrow,  he  undertook 
to  close  the  incident.  "It  strikes  me,  Logan,"  he  interposed, 
with  a  manner  that  was  an  unsettled  compound  of  gentleness 
and  severity,  "that  it  would  be  well  to  leave  this  sort  of  horse- 
play to  the  socialists,  and  confine  ourselves  to  business." 

The  young  man's  respect  and  affection  for  his  father  were 
too  genuine  to  permit  trilling  either  with  his  opinions  or  his 
feelings.  With  the  other  men  Lyon  might  have  continued  on 
the  same  line  indefinitely.  For  his  father's  sake,  he  saw  that 
he  must  adopt  a  different  tone.  Still  standing,  with  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  at  the  end  of  the  table,  and  now  and  then  walk- 
ing a  step  or  two  in  either  direction,  he  took  a  new  point  of 
departure. 

"I'm  neither  an  end-man  nor  a  traitor.  These  things  are 
strictly  between  us,  and  I'm  not  likely  to  let  them  clog  the 
running  gear.  But,  honestly,  on  the  neutral  ground  between 
jobs,  I  would  like  inmiensely  to  find  out  how  many  of  us  are 
as  satisfied  as  we  think  we  are  with  the  whole  arrangement." 

"You  don't  propose  to  quit  the  business,  and  get  a  place  to 
spin  cobwebs  down  at  the  University?"  This  time  it  was  Dex- 
ter, of  the  Ninth  National.  He  had  hardly  spoken  since  Lyon 
disturbed  the  session.  His  face  had  been  lowering,  from  the 
first  remark,  and  the  innovation  seemed  to  irritate  him  more 
in  its  literal  than  in  its  facetious  form. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'the  whole  arrangement,'  Logan?" 
asked  his  father. 

"I  mean  this: — The  Avery  Company,  for  instance,  is 
a  sample  of  the  sort  of  thing  that  has  grown  up  all  over  the 
world.     Nobody  saw  in  advance  just  what  was  coming,  but 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     SAFE    AND     SANE 


new  sources  of  motor  power,  new  types  of  machinery,  new 
market^!,  new  legislation,  new  organization  of  economic 
forces,  have  gradually  put  into  the  hands  of  a  few  of  us  a  new 
type  of  control  over  most  of  our  partners  in  work.  That  is, 
the  great  majority  of  the  people  who  make  a  modern  industry 
have  no  more  to  say  about  the  policy  of  the  industry,  or  about 
business  standards  in  general,  than  the  Russian  moujiks  have 
about  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  empire.  Our  business, 
like  every  other,  is  necessarily  a  cooperative  process.  Each 
kind  of  labor,  from  thinking  out  the  first  steps  in  financing 
the  company,  to  the  least  skilled  work  in  getting  out  the  raw 
material  for  our  use,  depends  on  every  other  kind.  We 
couldn't  get  along  without  the  work  in  the  coal  yards,  any 
more  than  the  coal  yards  could  exist  without  the  work  in  this 
ofiice.  But  'the  whole  arrangement'  that  I  spoke  of  gives  a 
handful  of  us  relatively  as  much  power  over  the  great  number 
as  the  Russian  bureaucrats  have  over  the  nation  at  large.  This 
is  all  very  flattering  to  our  vanity,  and  convenient  for  our  side 
of  the  arrangement,  but  if  we  were  called  upon  to  justify  it  on 
grounds  of  good  sportsmanship,  we  should  have  hard  work  to 
come  ofi^  verv  proud  of  ourselves." 

"That's  the  talk  of  a  quitter,  Lyon,"  snarled  Evans.  "It's 
always  good  sportsmanship  to  take  what  comes  to  you  under 
the  rules,  not  to  whine  when  you  get  the  short  end." 

"It's  a  great  deal  better  sportsmanship,"  returned  Lyon, 
"when  everything  has  been  coming  our  way,  to  be  willing 
to  consider  whether  the  rules  haven't  artificially  favored  our 
style  of  play." 

"If  you'd  get  the  muddle  out  of  your  rhetoric,"  sneered 
Dexter,  "There'd  be  no  excuse  left  for  your  Miss  Nancyism 
about  sticking  to  business.  Come  in  out  of  the  moonlight,  and 
you'll  see  that  it  isn't  a  partnership,  nor  a  gentleman's  game. 
It's  a  fight.  Every  man  for  himself.  It's  all  well  enough 
to  pity  your  enemies  after  you've  got  them  where  you  want 
them,  but  if  you  give  any  quarter  before,  you  will  simply 
exchange  places." 

"There  would  be  millions,  Mr.  Dexter,  in  a  comic  opera 
built  around  a  national  bank  magnate  blowing  himself  with 
the  hallucination  that  business  is  'every  man  for  himself.'  " 

Lyon  had  crossed  over  to  Dexter 's  side  of  the  table  and  be- 
gan to  talk  about  him  rather  than  to  him.  His  manner  was 
that  of  a  lecturer  demonstrating  his  subject  upon  a  conve- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     SAFE    AND     SANE 


nient  piece  of  material.  The  specimen  seemed  to  stimulate  in 
liis  mind  a  tantalizing  mixture  of  curiosity  and  amusement. 

"If  it  really  were  'every  man  for  himself,'  Mr.  Dexter, 
where  would  the  bankers  be?  Not  one  of  them  could  ever 
have  got  beyond  selling  newspapers  on  the  street  corner.  But 
they  couldn't  have  got  that  far,  because  enough  capital  never 
could  have  been  collected  or  held  together  to  publish  a  news- 
paper. The  banker  who  thinks  he  has  fought  his  way  to  the 
front  without  help,  is  capable  of  believing  that  he  was  born  of 
his  own  will.  You  are  Exhibit  A,  Mr.  Dexter,  in  a  problem 
of  refutation  that  ought  not  to  puzzle  a  schoolboy.  Business 
in  general,  and  banking  as  a  shining  instance,  is  'many  men 
for  one  another.'  Not  a  business  on  earth  could  live  a  min- 
ute if  it  didn't  have  the  benefit  of  a  public  franchise  in  some 
shape.  When  you  look  the  facts  square  in  the  face,  you  find 
that  business  is  neither  a  game,  nor  a  fight,  nor  a  partnership, 
but  it  is  all  three  together.  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  will 
always  be  a  combination  of  the  three.  For  all  we  know,  how- 
ever, the  proportions  of  the  elements  will  have  to  be  changed 
a  great  many  times,  before  human  affairs  settle  down  in  their 
final  adjustment.  So  far  as  we  have  gone,  business  is  a  scram- 
ble to  let  in  jusl  enough  friends,  on  the  ground  floor  of  a  few 
preferred  partnerships,  to  secure  them  in  a  winning  fight 
with  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  non-preferred  partners  in- 
cluded. The  people  on  the  inside  couldn't  spin  a  thread  if 
a  hundred  times  as  many  people  on  the  outside  didn't  consent 
to  work  with  them  on  terms  which  the  insiders  find  profitable 
for  themselves.  Now  my  point  is  that  there  is  always  a  ques- 
tion whether  these  terms  are  fair,  and  whether  the  outsiders 
have  their  share  of  influence  in  testing  the  fairness.  Of 
course  the  insiders  mean  to  be  fair,  but  we  are  all  the  time 
fighting  for  the  right  to  be  our  own  judges  of  ourselves.  We 
dispute  every  inch  of  approach  of  the  outside  partners  to  pro- 
portional representation  in  the  controversy." 

To  tell  the  truth,  Lyon  was  surprising  himself  more  than 
his  hearers,  by  his  excursion  into  theory.  He  had  not  fore- 
seen where  he  would  land  when  he  slipped  his  moorings. 
Without  considering  how  seriovisly  he  would  want  to  stand  for 
what  he  was  saying,  he  was  enjoying  the  eftect,  on  himself  no 
less  than  on  the  others,  of  letting  himself  go  and  seeing  what 
would  happen. 

The  other  men  seemed  to  have  lost  the  connection.    I^yon's 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     SAFE    AND     SANE 


line  of  thought  was  so  far  from  their  beaten  track  that  it  left 
them  with  a  safe  "never-toucluHi-nic"  feeling.  They  were  even 
recovering  themselves  enough  to  feel  foolish  for  having  al- 
lowed Lyon  to  rutHe  them  by  an  argument  that  ended  in  the 
air.  Evans  again  gave  the  first  sign  of  a  changing  mood. 
"When  we  get  this  dust  of  words  laid  enough  to  see  through 
it,  the  bright  particular  moonbeam  you  seem  to  be  chasing, 
Lyon,  is  suppression  of  the  fit,  and  turning  control  of  things 
over  to  the  unfit." 

"Lyon's  conscience  is  troubled,"  chimed  in  Dexter,  "be- 
cause brains  don't  go  to  the  bottom  instead  of  the  top." 

"Whether  there  is  any  conscience  in  it  or  not,"  retorted 
Lyon,  "the  assumption  that  brains  and  nerve  to  hog  the  situa- 
tion are  identical,  is  an  overdraft  on  my  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous." 

"What  remedy  do  you  propose,  Logan,  for  the  evils  you 
have  in  mind?"  asked  his  father. 

"That  question  seems  to  me  to  be  the  chief  defense  we  offer 
for  not  hunting  down  the  evils  themselves,"  replied  Lyon, 
for  the  first  time  appearing  to  speak  entirely  without  dis- 
guise. "It  turns  out  to  be  a  defense  that  is  no  credit  to  us, 
when  we  think  what  it  implies.  It  is  no  excuse  for  shirking 
today's  work,  that  we  can't  predict  how  our  great  grandchil- 
dren will  finish  it.  We  might  just  as  well  hold  up  the  doc- 
tors for  finding  cancer  in  their  patients,  because  they  haven't 
yet  learned  how  to  cure  it." 

"If  we  must  use  comparisons,"  returned  his  father,  "the 
kind  of  sentimentality  you  are  sampling  seems  to  me  more 
like  condemning  the  human  body  because  the  mind  controls 
the  muscles,  instead  of  the  reverse." 

W^hen  Logan  was  in  good  spirits,  and  completely  at  his 
ease,  he  had  a  yodling  laugh  that  was  more  persuasive  than 
argument.    It  had  a  wide  range  of  expression,  and  it  was  es- 

Eecially  effective  when  the  ludicrous  side  of  an  idea  struck 
im  as  its  vulnerable  point.  His  regard  for  his  father  made 
him  use  it  now  with  subdued  discretion,  but  even  under  re- 
straint it  gave  edge  to  what  he  said.  "The  excruciating  thing, 
Father,  is  that  one  set  of  muscles  can  gravely  declare  to  the 
other  sets  of  muscles,  'You  are  only  muscles,  we  are  mind.'  " 
"Suppose  we  drop  the  comparisons  then,"  continued  Mr. 
Lyon,  "and  say  just  what  we  mean.  Whether  there  are  pre- 
ventable evils  in  the  world  or  not,  they  would  soon  be  multi- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SAFE    AND     SANE 


plied  a  hundred  times  over,  if  we  should  start  to  cure  them  on 
the  theory  that  the  average  man  knows  how  to  do  his  own 
thinking." 

"The  other  half  of  that  truth,"  responded  Logan,  **is  a  va- 
riation of  the  'many  men  for  one  another'  proposition. 
Neither  the  average  man  nor  the  phenomenal  man  is  capable 
of  doing  all  his  own  thinking.  I  wonder  if  each  man  ought  not 
to  have  the  right  to  do  the  fraction  of  his  own  thinking  that 
is  within  his  capacity,  and  to  make  his  own  selection  of  people 
to  do  the  rest,  up  to  the  point  where  he  begins  to  be  a  nuisance 
to  his  neighbors." 

''It  is  weak  and  dangerous,"  insisted  Mr.  Lyon,  with  a  re- 
vival of  his  previous  energy,  "to  dally  with  the  notion  that  the 
ordinary  man  could  go  very  far  without  a  guardian.  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  I  know,  better  than  people  in  gen- 
eral, what  they  ought  to  think  about  things  in  general." 

"Suppose  we  grant  that,  father,"  responded  Logan  gently, 
"it  doesn't  touch  the  main  question.  The  real  issue  is  this: 
How  do  you  know  that  your  better  judgment  hasn't  usurped 
more  authority  than  it  is  entitled  to  as  a  dictator  to  men  of 
poorer  judgment?  Political  tyranny  has  always  justified 
itself  on  the  same  ground.  The  argument  of  the  few  is: — 
'The  many  don't  know.  We  do.  Therefore  we  have  the 
right  to  govern  the  many.'  No  one  dares  to  say  that  in  poli- 
tics in  the  United  States ;  but  we  still  say  it  in  business.  The 
Kaiser  thinks  he  knows  better  than  his  Germans  what  they 
ought  to  think  about  things  in  general,  and  he  consequently 
maintains  a  government  that  regulates  them,  from  the  hiring 
of  servant  girls  to  declaring  war.  On  the  face  of  it,  the  re- 
sults are  in  the  Kaiser's  favor.  As  a  pure  matter  of  good 
order  we  couldn't  make  a  better  investment  than  to  call  in  our 
democracy,  and  hire  a  competent  emperor  to  run  us  on  the 
Kaiser's  plan.  But  we  think  w^e  are  better  off,  all  things  con- 
sidered, paying  the  penalties  of  our  own  incompetence  as  we 
go  along,  and  meanwhile  learning  by  experience.  Isn't  it 
conceivable  that  we  should  get  more  out  of  business  too,  in 
the  end,  if  we  diminished  its  Kaiserism  and  increased  its 
democracy?" 

"I  suppose  it  is  conceivable,"  mused  Mr.  Lyon,  "that  uni- 
versal bankruptcy  would  usher  in  the  millennium;  but  so 
many  things  remain  to  be  said  in  defense  of  solvency  that  I 
can  still  oppose  the  experiment  with  a  clear  conscience." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SAFE     AND     SANE 


The  nl)str:u-t  turn  of  the  discussion  had  made  every  one 
feel  that  it  hatl  passed  out  of  the  danger  zone,  and  common 
consent  seemed  to  have  been  reached  that  the  whole  ej)isode 
was  a  natural  reaction  from  the  day's  exertions.  Although 
J^yon  wanted  to  point  out  that  at  Iciust  two  questions  were 
hegged  in  his  father's  reply,  he  preferred  to  accept  the  oppoi'- 
tuinty  to  allow  him  the  last  word.  He  wtu><  trying  to  withdraw 
gracefully,  with  acknowledgments  to  the  company  for  the 
mental  pliotogra])lis  they  had  contributed  to  his  researches, 
when  Dexter  gave  a  j)arting  sign  that  he  had  been  hit. 

''Before  your  debating  society  adjourns,  Lyon,  let  me  give 
you  one  bit  of  friendly  advice.  If  you  can  still  make  people 
believe  you  know  a  little  law,  hold  on  to  that  graft,  and  don't 
take  chances  beyond  your  dei)th  in  political  economy.  You 
would  avoid  a  world  of  worry  about  social  reform  if  you  would 
buy  an  economic  primer,  and  learn  the  lesson  that  the  only 
way  for  employees  to  improve  th(>ir  conditions  is  to  stop  fight- 
ing their  employers  and  increase  the  productivity  of  labor." 

As  there  was  no  time  left  for  argument,  Lyon  merely  ob- 
served, with  an  exasperating  affectation  of  humility: — "It 
was  a  calamity  to  civilization,  Mr.  Dexter,  that  the  primer  you 
drew  your  wisdom  from  was  allow^ed  to  go  out  of  print  a  third 
of  a  century  ago.  Its  enormous  value  was  in  the  pointer  it 
gave  to  employers.  They  might  have  multiplied  our  pros- 
y)erity  by  taking  advantage  of  it.  If  organized  labor  is  fight- 
ing against  fate,  tdl  capital  has  to  do  is  to  cut  off  the  expense 
of  opposing  the  unions,  let  labor  defeat  itself,  and  declare 
extra  dividends  from  the  savings.  Of  course  motives  of  phil- 
anthropy towards  laboring  men  have  been  the  only  reason 
why  employers  have  not  given  themselves  the  benefit  of  that 
paragraj)h  in  the  primer  long  ago!" 

If  Logan  Lyon  had  actually  been  settled  in  the  role  of  a 
dispa.ssionate  student,  rather  than  of  a  partisan  in  social  con- 
flicts, he  would  have  been  aware  that  one  era  was  dissolving 
into  another  le.ss  in  the  fight  between  hostile  social  classes, 
than  in  unconscious  changes  of  views  going  forward  in  groups 
like  the  one  now  dispersing.  He  did  not  know  that  his  own 
position  had  been  shifted  by  the  discussion.  In  fact,  though 
he  had  changed  no  specific  opinion,  he  had  virtually  made  the 
decisive  transition  from  the  attitude  of  an  attorney  to  that  of 
an  inquirer. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   INSURGENT 


THE    INSURGENT 


VIII 

THE   INSURGENT 

'The  ground  plan  of  a  democracy  is  that  all  shares  in  the 
profits  of  the  cooperation  shall  be  paid  for  in  work,  and 
that  no  one  shall  have  any  rights  that  he  does  not  earn." 


TITE  strike  had  been  in  full  force  for  two  weeks. 
The  Avery  Company  had  promptly  posted  notice  that 
the  j)lant  would  slini  down  six  weeks  for  repairs.  As  there 
was  no  work  for  strike-breakers,  picketing  was  not  needed, 
and  thus  far  there  had  been  no  violence  of  any  sort  that 
could  be  charged  to  the  strikers. 

The  newspapers,  as  a  rule,  seemed  to  be  completely  baffled 
by  the  situation.  It  presented  questions  for  which  there  was 
no  stereotyped  answer  in  their  libraries,  and  they  had  for 
the  most  part  confined  themselves  to  platitudes. 

The  Freeman,  which  was  making  the  most  desperate  at- 
lemjits  to  seduce  the  labor  vote,  was  not  sure  whether  the 
present  movement  was  an  eddy  or  the  main  current.  To 
cover  its  vacuity  of  opinion,  it  avoided  direct  statements 
about  the  merits  of  the  particular  case,  and  took  refuge  in 
more  than  usually  clownish  abuse  of  capitalists  in  general. 

The  Courier,  whose  editorial  page  was  without  a  rival  as 
a  permanent  exposition  of  the  perfunctory  products  of  subsi- 
dized insincerity,  was  alternately  unctuous  and  scurrilous  in 
its  denunciations  of  the  moral  sin  of  entertaining  beliefs  not 
dictated  by  the  class  bias  of  its  owners. 

The  papers  which  were  taken  seriously  by  the  intelligent 
sections  of  the  population  made  the  most  of  the  folly  of 
strikes  in  general,  and  of  the  failure  of  the  strikers,  in  the 
present  instance,  to  bring  specific  charges  against  the  Avery 
Company.  They  were  shy  of  the  question  of  principle  that 
had  been  raised.  While  they  were  trying  to  decide  how  to 
treat  it.  they  affected  to  regard  the  whole  struggle  as  a  purely 
theoretical  issue,  that  had  wandered  out  of  its  sphere  and  ac- 
cidentally entangled  itself  with  practical  affairs. 

The  first  mass  meeting  in  the  interest  of  the  strike  was  in 
the  Armory,  Sunday  afternoon.  John  Graham  was  an- 
nounced as  the  chief  speaker. 

121 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    INSURGENT 


Upon  Ediiorly's  dare,  he  and  Lopm  Lyon  were  in  the  as- 
ponihly.  For  both  men  the  excursion  was  a  voyage  of  dis- 
covery. Neither  had  very  distinct  ideas  as  to  what  the  dem- 
onstration w<Mild  be  like,  but  l)oth  decided  to  take  the  pre- 
caution of  wearino;  cast-off  clothes,  to  avoid  being  conspicuous. 

The  meeting  had  already  been  called  to  order  when  they 
arrived,  but  nothing  that  was  taking  place  on  the  platform 
was  audible  more  than  fifty  feet  away.  The  floor  of  the  im- 
mense building  was  filled  with  men  who  were  densely  packed 
near  the  speakers,  but  beyond  the  range  of  the  voices  move- 
ment wa.s  not  very  difficult.  As  they  did  not  care  for  the  foot- 
l)all  practice  that  would  have  been  necessary  to  get  within 
hearing  distance,  Lyon  and  Edgerly  circulated  through  the 
outskirts  of  the  crowd,  trying  to  gauge  the  composition  of 
the  audience. 

Their  first  impre-ssion  was  recorded  in  Lyon's  remark  to 
Edgerly,  as  they  found  an  unoccupied  spot  under  the  bal- 
cony, nearly  op])osite  the  rostrum.  "Before  we're  in  any 
deeper,  Ernest,  it  might  be  well  to  go  home  and  change  our 
clothes.  I  wouldn't  be  so  very  much  surprised  if  an  usher  in 
uniform  came  and  requested  us  to  retire  and  dress  ourselves 
with  due  respect  for  the  occasion." 

The  faces  of  both  men  testified  that  they  felt  a  good  deal 
as  though  they  had  caught  themselves  offering  a  tip  to  the 
manager  of  the  Blackstone. 

"We  might  as  well  own  up,"  stammered  Edgerly,  with  a 
shamefaced  substitute  for  a  smile,  "that  we  don't  know  our 
Chicago  as  well  as  we  thought  w^e  did.  This  lot  averages 
much  better  in  looks  than  the  grand  stand  rooters  at  a  West 
Side  game." 

"AVhy,  in  everything  but  size  it  might  be  a  Board  of  Trade 
crowd,"  answered  Lyon.  "It  must  be  that  most  of  them  are 
spies  like  us." 

After  another  quarter^circuit  of  the  floor,  they  stopped 
again  to  compare  notes. 

"There  are  more  difiPerent  kinds  than  I  made  out  at  first," 
began  Edgerly,  "but  I  haven't  spotted  a  specimen  yet  of  the 
.sort  I  expected  to  find  in  the  majority." 

"Yes,  I've  recovered  my  spirits  a  little,"  laughed  Lyon, 
"since  I've  rubbed  against  one  or  two  fellows  that  looked  as 
seedy  as  we  do ;  but  after  taking  my  life  in  my  hands  to  find 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    INSURGENT 


out  how  a  gang  of  bullies  would  act,  I  can't  make  myself  feel 
comfortable  in  such  a  ladylike  collection." 

''It's  a  model  Sunday  School,"  reflected  Edgerly,  "com- 
pared with  the  last  Republican  convention  in  our  district. 
I  expected  to  find  a  mob  of  fire-eaters,  but  most  of  them  are 
not  taking  it  half  as  seriously  as  we  do." 

"I  never  got  next  to  a  more  good  natured  jumble  of  des- 
peradoes," assented  Lyon.  ''These  scraps  of  talk  we  hear  are 
pretty  good  samples  of  the  ideas  I  suppose  we  mean  by 
Americanism.  As  I  make  out  the  sense  of  the  meeting  it's 
about  this: — There's  the  devil  to  pay,  and  it's  time  to  get 
busy  settling  the  score.  But  there's  no  use  getting  hot  about 
it.  We've  got  means  to  burn  when  we  get  good  and  ready  to 
use  them.  The  other  fellows  are  well  enough  in  their  way, 
but  they're  getting  too  fresh,  and  need  to  be  called.  After 
the  smoke  clears  we  shall  shake  hands,  and  make  up,  and 
like  each  other  all  the  better ;  but  before  it  comes  to  that  the 
bosses  are  due  for  a  throw-down  that  they'll  remember." 

"I've  noticed  here  and  there  what  looks  like  a  bad  man 
prowling  around,"  added  Edgerly,  "but  they  don't  seem  to 
belong  to  the  real  push,  any  more  than  we  do.  On  the  whole, 
it  rather  booms  my  self-respect  to  find  out  what  a  fine  breed 
of  chaps  are  my  fellow-citizens." 

Suddenly  a  shout  rose  around  the  stage,  in  the  middle  of 
one  of  the  longer  sides  of  the  building.  It  spread  in  waves 
till  it  seemed  to  fill  floor  and  balconies.  Graham  had  been 
introduced.  The  reception  settled  all  doubts  as  to  the  lean- 
ings of  the  crowd.  It  was  hard  to  find  a  man  who  was  not 
joining  with  the  full  power  of  his  lungs,  and  holding  his  hat 
at  arm's  length  above  his  head,  wriggling  to  swing  it  in  spite 
of  the  crush  of  his  neighbors.  Allowing  for  the  contagion 
of  mob  impulses,  it  was  plain  enough  that  the  reception  was 
a  fair  index  of  the  prevailing  sentiment,  and  that  it  was  due 
to  sympathy  with  the  movement  which  Graham  represented. 

If  the  speaker  had  faced  that  multitude  alone,  his  physique 
might  not  at  once  have  caused  remark.  The  fifty  men  on  the 
platform  were  nearly  all  above  medium  stature ;  and  the  chair- 
man of  the  meeting  had  a  figure  that  would  have  been  nota- 
ble in  any  ordinary  company;  but  as  they  rose  to  lead  the 
ovation  one  might  have  suspected  that  they  had  been  selected 
for  the  purpose  of  making  Graham  look  heroic  by  contrast. 

Although  Graham  was  tall,  he  was  not  a  giant,  and  he  was 

123 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    INSURGENT 


so  well  proportioned  that  his  height  ^va.s  consiTicuoiis  c)nly  by 
>mh  ronipiu'ison.  His  j)rosen('e  liad  the  pen^jL^ive  quality 
whicli  at  once  opens  oomniunication  with  every  man  in  an 
aiulionce.  l-Joforo  the  cheering  had  booun  to  subside,  nearly 
every  one  was  in  the  ])eculiar  emotional  state  which  a  few 
men  have  the  power  to  produce  in  a  crowd.  Each  felt  a;; 
thou,2:h  he  had  a  si)ecial  understanding  with  the  speaker. 

The  sheer  absence  of  affectation  in  Graham's  manner,  as  he 
bowed  his  acknowledgments,  with  a  look  of  almost  boyish 
pleasure,  disarmed  even  the  cold  criticism  of  Lyon  and 
ivlgcrly.  The  grey  Tweed  suit,  with  neglige  shirt  open  sailor 
fashion  at  the  throat,  would  have  been  an  obvious  makeup  in 
the  case  of  many  men.  l^ut  the  costume  helped  to  strengthen 
the  credentials  of  Graham's  genuinene.«.s.  The  careless  mass 
of  wavy  brown  hair  was  in  frank  secession  from  custom ;  but 
the  lawlessness  kept  so  well  within  the  limits  of  reasonable 
independence  that  it  had  none  of  the  marks  of  advertising. 
There  was  strength  without  coarseness  in  every  feature  of 
the  face;  and  the  olive  skin,  weather-bronzed  but  not  hard- 
ened, seemed  f)eculiarly  pliant  to  generous  emotions. 

"It's  a  handsome  brute  all  right,"  growled  Lyon  in  an  un- 
dertone.   ''A  sure  enough  ribbon-winner  in  the  stock  show." 

''Too  athletic  for  an  artist,"  murmured  Edgerly,  "and  too 
esthetic  for  an  athlete.  If  he  lives  fifty  years  longer,  and  lets 
his  beard  grow,  he'll  be  an  easy  ringer  for  Jove." 

Graham's  instinct  seemed  to  designate  the  moment  when 
a  gesture  could  bring  silence.  In  place  of  the  commotion 
that  had  reduced  the  previous  platfonn  proceedings  to  pan- 
tomime, and  in  transition  from  the  paroxysm  of  welcome  to 
the  new  leader,  there  came  a  few  seconds  of  quiet  so  expectant 
that  it  was  almost  ominous. 

Even  to  those  nearest  the  platfonn.  the  first  words  did  not 
seem  to  be  spoken  in  a  loud  tone,  nor  with  noticeable  efi^ort, 
but  they  reached  every  person  in  the  hall.  Graham  had  the 
oratorical  temperament,  with  the  physical  equipment  to  make 
it  effective. 

"This  celebration  means  that  the  soul  of  Abe  Lincoln  is 
marching  on ;  we  are  here  to  ratify  the  vow  that  'government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth.'  " 

There  seemed  to  bo  nothing  foi-ccd  about  the  outburst  of 
applause  that  greeted  the  familiar  words.     The  psychology 

124 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    INSURGENT 


aiul  l()oi(^  of  the  situation  were: — The  man  who  can  manage 
this  niiiHitudo  must  be  a  power:  Whether  we  see  it  or  not, 
whatever  such  a  man  say.s  nuist  have  a  meaning.  If  we  kept 
still,  it  would  look  as  though  we  didn't  understand  him,  or 
didn't  go  with  him :  Therefore  we  must  back  up  every  word 
he  .says. 

"New  times,  new  tasks!  It  ha.s  been  more  than  a  genera- 
tion since  the  people  of  this  country  asserted  themselves.  The 
call  is  sounding  now  for  a  new  exertion  ol  the  people's 
power!" 

Under  cover  of  the  cheers,  Edgerly  commented  to  Lyon, 
"Whether  he's  going  to  say  anything  or  not,  you  can't  help 
liking  the  beggar." 

"lie  has  the  dangerous  gift  of  mailing  you  feel  like  a  sneak 
thief  if  you  don't  intend  to  agree  with  him."  Lyon  was  more 
than  half  afraid  he  would  agree  with  him,  but  he  hoped  he 
would  not  be  called  upon  to  j)art  with  any  of  his  choicest 
idols. 

"The  earth  is  the  peo])le's  and  the  fulness  thereof!" 

The  sentiment  struck  a  .sympathetic  chord,  and  there  could 
hardly  have  been  more  force  and  volume  in  the  response  if 
it  had  greeted  notice  of  an  immediate  cash  dividend  on  the 
equity. 

"The  next  great  task  for  the  people  is  to  make  it  impossible 
for  too  few  men  to  control  too  much  of  the  earth !" 

This  time  the  agreement  w^is  equally  e^'ident,  but  less  dem- 
onstrative. The  problem  factor  that  haunted  the  propo.^^ition 
dampened  extravagant  enthusiasm. 

"Prescription  for  a  revolution ;"  stage-whispered  Edgerly, 
heavy-villainously.  "One  truism,  before  taken,  to  be  well 
shaken." 

"I'm  not  sure  that  it's  so  far  out  of  the  way,"  soliloquized 
Lyon.  "A  derelict  truism  is  a  mighty  .serious  menace  to  navi- 
gation." 

"With  all  its  resources,"  continued  Graham,  "the  world 
would  be  a  wilderness  without  human  labor. 

"All  the  human  labor  that  is  concerned  in  turning  the 
wilderness  to  human  use  is  entitled  to  pro  rata  influence  in 
controlling  the  results!" 

The  roar  of  approbation  that  greeted  this  sentiment  was 
more  confident  than  any  of  it.s  predecessors.  Every  one  rec- 
ognized the  key  note  of  the  labor  movement.     As  usual,  the 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    INSURGENT 


sliiihtly  varied  statement  affected  those  already  convinced  as 
a  r(»iuiuost  for  their  faith  inst4?ad  of  a  mere  rea^^^ertion. 

"The  world  is  a  castle,  provisioned  for  the  longest  siege  it 
will  ever  have  to  endure.  The  ollicers  have  got  control  of 
the  ."Supplies  and  are  turning  them  into  dollaiv;  for  thcm- 
selve^^.  instead  of  holding  them  subject  to  the  needs  of  the 
garrison.'' 

Lame  a.«  it  was,  the  figure  caught  the  imagination  of  the 
hearers.  The  jeers  with  which  they  greeted  it  showed 
that  their  attitude  toward  the  situation  was  more  contemptu- 
ous than  bitter.  Graham  felt  their  mood  and  humored  it  by 
adding: — 

"It  doesn't  help  matters  much  for  the  rank  and  file,  to 
know  that  the  officers  are  mostly  good  fellows,  and  religiously 
believe  tliat  the  world  is  better  off  with  more  dollars  pouring 
into  their  pockets  than  with  more  goods  going  to  the  use  of 
tlie  garrison." 

"If  the  garri.son  were  dispo.sed  to  be  ugly,"  muttered  Lyon, 
"that  would  be  a  na-^ty  report  to  circulate.  The  .safety  valve 
for  that  kind  of  over-pre.ssure,  however,  is  our  American 
fiction  that  we're  only  temporarily  in  the  rank  and  file,  and 
in  a  day  or  two  our  turn  will  come  to  he  ofiicers." 

For  ten  minutes  more  Graham  fortified  his  standing  with 
hi.s  public  by  similar  variations  of  familiar  notions.  Then 
came  the  real  test  of  his  persuasive  power,  as  he  tried  to  give 
the  crowd  working  use  of  an  idea  slightly  beyond  their  or- 
dinary range  of  reasoning. 

"Every  democracy  is  a  union  of  people  working  a  certain 
plot  of  ground  on  shares. 

"Our  nation  is  simply  a  big  ranch  started  on  the  cooper- 
ative principle,  and  branching  out  into  diversified  industries 
whenever  they  are  demanded  by  the  needs  of  the  ranchers. 

"The  ground  plan  of  a  democracy  Ls  that  all  shares  in  the 
profits  of  the  cooperation  shall  be  paid  for  in  work,  and  that 
no  one  .shall  have  any  rights  that  he  does  not  earn. 

"Any  ranchers  that  are  content  to  .stand  by  and  see  that 
ground  plan  perverted,  are  not  democrats  but  degenerates!" 

Perhaps  the  words  alone  would  not  have  made  a  strong  im- 
pres.sion,  but  carried  by  Graham's  personality  they  struck  an 
electric  spark.  It  is  not  easy  to  tell  when  a  thought  is  mak- 
ing its  way  through  a  mass  of  people.  Mere  transfer  of  nerv- 
ous stimulus  is  often  mistaken  for  mental  action.     Graham 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    INSURGENT 


was  not  sure  that  the  shouting  multitude  before  him  actually 
knew  what  he  meant,  but  they  were  in  a  receptive  temper, 
and  he  believed  he  could  succeed  in  lodging  his  idea. 

''Let  me  sketch  a  picture.  I  will  use  neither  the  darkest  nor 
the  brightest  colors,  but  the  lines  will  be  drawn  from  real  life. 

"On  that  side  are  a  brother  and  a  sister.  They  were  born  in 
a  good  home.  Father  and  mother  were  industrious,  virtuous 
and  happy.  They  did  their  best  to  give  their  children  a  start 
in  the  world.  They  guarded  their  health,  and  fed  them  with 
wholesome  food  and  sent  them  to  school,  and  taught  them  to 
love  fairness  and  fidelity.  But  these  parents  had  to  work 
hard,  and  as  soon  as  the  children  were  of  legal  age  it  was 
necessary  for  them  to  begin  earning  their  own  support.  The 
boy  went  into  a  trade.  The  girl  began  at  the  bottom  in  a  big 
store.  They  were  good  workers.  They  were  always  worth 
more  than  they  received.  But  to  the  end  of  their  lives  they 
never  had  a  right  to  the  next  day's  work.  Their  employers 
could  discharge  them  if  they  pleased,  and  after  they  had 
used  up  the  little  savings  that  they  could  lay  by  from  their 
meagre  pay  they  would  have  only  the  right  to  take  their 
chances  between  employers  and  other  competitors  for  the 
same  jobs. 

"On  this  side  of  the  picture  are  another  brother  and  sister. 
Before  they  were  born  their  father  had  come  into  control  of 
enormous  wealth.  From  babyhood  they  were  watched  and 
served  and  amused  and  petted  by  relays  of  physicians,  and 
nurses,  and  governesses  and  flunkeys.  They  were  supplied 
with  all  the  luxuries  that  money  could  buy.  They  were 
housed  in  private  palaces,  and  had  private  parks  for  their 
playgrounds,  and  were  carried  in  private  cars,  and  entertained 
on  private  yachts,  and  even  favored  by  private  legislation. 
When  they  came  of  age  they  had  never  known  a  thought  of 
any  one's  comfort  but  their  own,  and  they  had  no  intention 
of  expending  effort  except  in  catering  to  themselves.  Yet,  in 
the  same  democracy,  founded  on  the  law  of  one  and  the  same 
justice  for  all,  this  useless  and  effortless  brother  and  sister 
are  guaranteed  life-long  privilege.  They  have  the  vested 
right  of  wasting  on  themselves  every  year  as  much  as  a  thou- 
sand brothers  and  sisters  of  the  other  type,  working  with  all 
their  might,  can  ever  earn  as  their  annual  wage. 

"This  double  picture  is  a  snap-shot  of  the  whole  labor 
problem. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    INSURGENT 


"Every  (hinsj;  that  capital  ami  lahor  arc  nt2;htini:;  altoul  lurns 
mi  the  decision  of  one  question. 

"Capitalism  a^^sert^s  that  tliese  do-nothing  spenders  are 
right.  Democracy  declares  thai  these  (lo-n(»thing  si)endcrs 
are  wrong. 

"The  conthct  is  eternal  until  we  remove  the  contradiction! 

"Organized  labor  is  the  attorney  of  Democracy  bi'inging 
action  for  adjudication  of  the  question  before  the  moial  judg- 
ment of  the  world!'" 

So  far  as  the  immediate  assembly  was  concerned,  Graham 
felt  that  he  had  accomi)lished  his  purpose.  He  had  stated 
the  issiie  in  a  form  so  .simple  that  he  did  not  see  how  it  could 
be  made  plainer.  He  had  presented  it  as  a  conflict  not  of 
jealousy  but  of  justice.  Whether  or  not  his  hearers  appre- 
ciated the  difference,  they  showed  that  they  were  with  him 
for  practical  purposes,  and  he  felt  his  confidence  increasing 
that  the  coui-se  of  the  campaign  could  be  made  to  follow  the 
general  lines  of  his  plan. 

Graham  did  not  count  much  on  mass  meetings  as  means 
of  popular  instniction.  He  said  they  were  not  the  most  eco- 
nomical way  of  getting  knowledge  into  people's  heads,  but 
they  were  useful  for  putting  people  on  better  terms  with  ideas 
already  collected.  He  did  not  think  the  total  impression  of 
the  meeting  on  the  crowd  itself  would  be  streng-thened  by 
anything  he  might  say  further.  To  set  the  movement  right, 
however,  before  the  larger  public  which  would  be  reached 
through  the  newspapers,  he  had  something  to  add. 

"The  campaign  that  we  oj^ened  two  weeks  ago  is  along 
entirely  new  lines.  We  have  reversed  the  usual  order.  We 
are  not  now  fighting  over  spoils.  We  are  fighting  to  change 
conditions  that  raise  all  the  questions  of  spoils. 

"Both  laboring  men  and  capitalists  have  tried  to  prove  that 
we  should  fail  because  we  were  not  fighting  for  anything  tan- 
gible, but  merely  for  a  theory. 

"The  shortest  distance  to  a  given  point  is  a  theory,  if  it  is 
only  the  right  theory ! 

"Organized  labor  has  cheated  itself  too  long  by  trying  to 
reach  its  aims  without  settling  its  theory. 

"The  |>resent  cami)aign  is  a  labor-saving  experiment. 

128 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    INSURGENT 


"After  we  have  fought  one  or  two  fundamental  questions 
of  theory  to  a  finish,  we  can  apply  the  results  at  our  leisure. 

"I  said  a  monient  ago  that  mH  labor  problems  run  back  to 
one  question.     I  want  to  explain  that  a  little  further. 

"Business  is  the  reign  of  capital.  Democracy  is  the  reign 
of  people. 

"Underneath  all  the  details  of  the  labor  problem  is  this 
radical  issue:  On  the  one  hand.  Capitalism  decrees  that  cap- 
ital shall  fix  the  destinies  of  people;  on  the  other  hand  De- 
mocracy demands  that  people  shall  fix  the  destinies  of  capital. 

"Between  these  two  principles  the  conflict  is  as  irrepressible 
in  modern  society  as  war  between  the  principles  of  state  sov- 
ereignty and  nationality  was  in  American  history. 

"There  never  can  be  peace  between  these  two  principles 
till  one  has  surrendered  to  the  constitutional  supremacy  of 
the  other. 

"In  the  clash  of  arms,  neither  fightei's  nor  observers  may 
always  be  able  to  see  the  whole  meaning  of  every  minor  move- 
ment. If  we  ever  lose  our  bearings  in  this  campaign,  we 
shall  find  them  again  by  going  back  to  first  principles.  Or- 
ganized labor  has  enlisted  for  the  war,  and  so  long  as  the  war 
holds  on,  and  whatever  its  shifting  fortunes  may  be,  our  ob- 
ject, first,  last  and  all  the  time,  is  to  suppress  the  sovereignty 
of  capital,  and  to  establish  the  sovereignty  of  people !" 

The  unfailing  encouragement  that  came  from  the  crowd 
made  Graham  feel  guilty  for  questioning  either  its  interest 
or  its  capacity.  After  illustrating  the  last  jioint  in  ways  that 
put  it  into  everyday  pictures,  and  restated  it  in  familiar  con- 
crete terms,  he  passed  to  the  last  point  that  he  intended  to 
present. 

"What  I  have  said  is  a  final  answer  to  the  charge  that  we 
don't  know  what  we  are  fighting  for.  We  know  what  we  are 
after,  as  clearly  as  the  United  States  government  did  when  it 
warned  the  Spaniards  out  of  Cuba.  The  last  point  I  have  to 
make  today  is  that  our  plan  of  campaign  is  just  as  definite 
as  the  purpose  which  we  mean  to  win. 

"Modern  business  is  a  vast  system  of  taxation,  without  rep- 
resentation. The  hard  working  brother  and  sister  labor  and 
pay  tribute  to  the  do-nothing  brother  and  sister,  and  have  no 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    INSURGENT 


chance  to  get  a  hearing  for  (heir  side  of  tlie  jirgument  that 
the  arrangement  is  unequal. 

"The  Avery  Company  directors  are  held  witliin  certain 
limits  by  the  ])Ossil>le  competition  of  other  corporations. 
Within  those  limits  they  have  the  power  every  year  to  dis- 
pose of  profits  that  run  into  the  millions.  They  can  make 
jiresents  of  bigger  salaries  to  themselves  as  officers,  or  bigger 
dividends  to  themselves  as  stockholders,  or  future  bonuses  to 
themselves  and  fellow  stockholders,  in  the  form  of  undivided 
surplus.  Labor  was  a  partner  in  making  those  profits.  Our 
cam])aign  will  not  end  till  labor  has  a  iiroporlional  partner- 
ship in  distributing  the  profits! 

"Our  fight  is  not  with  selected  persons,  nor  with  a  particular 
cor]X)ration,  but  with  a  system  ! 

"We  are  not  contending  for  any  petty  changes  of  policy; 
but  for  destruction  of  the  system  which  damns  its  best  policies 
by  making  them  the  dictates  of  despotism  instead  of  the  deci- 
sions of  Democracy. 

"Capitalism  make?  a  farce  of  Democracy ! 

"Capitalism  is  disfranchisement  of  the  hardest  working 
partner  in  the  business ! 

"Capitalism  makes  dollars  domineer  over  men ! 

"Democracy  demands  that  men  shall  be  masters  over  dol- 
lars! 

"Our  fight  is  for  recognition  of  the  principle  that  all  the 
different  kinds  of  men  who  share  in  producing  the  dollars, 
shall  share  in  the  same  proportion  in  disposing  of  the  dollars! 

"When  Ave  attacked  the  Avery  Company,  we  merely  opened 
fire  on  the  most  exposed  outpost  of  Capitalism  ! 

"AMiatever  happens  at  this  point,  we  shall  fight  it  out  on 
this  line  till  labor  comes  to  its  own  as  a  recognized  part  of 
every  business.  If  it  turns  out  to  be  a  hundred  years'  war, 
or  a  thousand  years'  war,  there  can  never  be  permanent  peace 
with  Capitalism,  till  labor  has  its  proper  voice  in  the  man- 
agement of  everv'  business,  and  in  enacting  the  laws  that  gov- 
ern all  business ! 

"In  a  word  then,  the  aim  of  organized  labor  is  the  triumph 
of  Democracy  over  Capitalism.  The  system  by  which  we  shall 
fight  to  suppress  the  tyranny  of  Capitalism  will  be  removal 
of  the  res-tricted  representation  dictated  by  Capitalism,  and 
substitution  of  proportional  suffrage  of  all  the  interests  con- 
cerned ! 

130 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    INSURGENT 


"We  refuse  to  cooperate  any  longer  on  terms  that  give  the 
lion's  share  of  benefit  to  the  men  whose  hardest  work  is  water- 
ing the  kind  of  stock  they  breed  in  Wall  Street  I 

"The  world  belongs  to  the  workers!  We  are  fighting  for 
the  Democracy  of  merit!  He  shall  rank  highest  among  us 
who  does  the  best  work!" 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   UNCONVINCED 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


IX 
THE    UNCONVINCED 

'But  what's  the  use?  The  only  difference  between  me  and 
the  rest  of  the  Company  is  that  they  don't  believe  a  word 
of  these  things,  while  I  subscribe  to  them  in  the  abstract 
but  don't  believe  they  are  available." 


IT  was  an  item  of  Halleck's  fixed  program  to  spend  a  part  of 
Sunday  afternoon  with  working  men.  If  he  was  not  at 
regularly  appointed  meetings,  he  would  drop  in  at  one  of  the 
headquarters,  where  large  numbers  were  sure  to  be  found ;  or 
he  would  accomplish  the  same  thing  by  a  couple  of  hours  with 
the  patrons  of  his  "Casino." 

It  would  have  been  neither  necessary  nor  easy  for  Halleck 
to  disguise  himself.  With  the  exception  of  one  or  two  priests, 
no  clergyman  in  Chicago  was  intimate  with  so  many  promi- 
nent labor  leaders,  and  probably  there  was  no  man  in  the  city, 
except  some  of  their  own  representatives,  who  would  have 
been  recognized  in  so  many  labor  groups. 

Halleck  went  to  the  Armory  meeting,  not  to  get  acquainted 
with  Graham's  ideas,  but  to  observe  their  effect  upon  the 
crowd.  Halleck  and  Graham  had  gone  over  the  ground  so 
often  together  that  they  thoroughly  understood  each  other. 
Probably  neither  was  aware  how  much  he  had  been  influ- 
enced by  the  other.  Of  the  two,  Halleck  represented 
thought,  and  Graham  action.  So  far  as  mere  abstract  ideas 
went,  they  did  not  differ  very  much.  The  antithesis  between 
them  w^as  that  between  the  philosopher  and  the  man  of  affairs. 
Compared  with  most  men  of  his  class,  Halleck  was  precipi- 
tate. Contrasted  with  men  of  Graham's  type,  he  was  reac- 
tionary. In  principle,  the  difference  was  that  the  one  put  the 
virtue  of  thoughts  foremost,  the  other  the  efficacy  of  deeds. 

If  Halleck  could  have  had  his  way,  social  progress  would 
have  been  through  stages  of  mental  capillary  attraction.  New 
thoughts  would  have  been  taken  up  by  new  strata  of  people, 
and  society  would  have  assimilated  new  forces,  and  accom- 
plished evolutionary  transformations,  without  shock  or  catas- 
trophe. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


Gniliam  wcnld  liavo  been  at  a  loss  for  ^Particulars,  if  ho  had 
boon  called  upon  to  give  an  account  of  any  ^^ludv  lie  had  ever 
made  of  possible  alternatives.  He  had  never  approached  the 
subject  by  a  philosopher's  method.  He  had  a  ])ractical  man's 
conviction,  however,  that  if  an  interest  isn't  <i;ettinfji;  what  it 
wants  the  only  way  is  to  go  after  it.  He  had  no  faith  in  the 
policy  of  corrcctin<2;  abuses  l)y  sul)mission  of  the  al)used.  He 
Avould  not,  if  ho  know  it,  do  evil  that  good  might  come,  but 
ho  believed  that  suffering  a  wrong  was  a  greater  evil  than 
fighting  it. 

In  strict  justice  to  Halleck,  the  contrast  should  be  quali- 
fied. The  two  men  differed  not  so  much  in  policy,  or  in  fun- 
damental belief,  as  in  choice  of  fulcnnii  for  their  effort.  They 
wonld  hardly  bo  found  0])posing  each  other  if  a  sufficiently 
long  view  were  taken  of  final  aims.  Under  a  given  provoca- 
tion, however.  Halleck  would  persist  in  trusting  to  reason 
long  after  Graham  had  decided  that  nothing  remained  but 
report  to  force. 

Halleck  had  no  doubt  that  John  Graham  was  much  nearer 
than  David  Lyon  to  a  correct  vision  of  the  final  order  of  the 
world.  He  could  not  understand  how  an  intelligent  person 
could  disagree  essentially  with  Graham  about  what  .should  be 
and  nmf^t  be  in  the  course  of  time.  Yet  he  could  easily  ex- 
plain Mr.  Lyon's  obstinacy  in  the  present  instance.  A  town 
meeting  government  would  so  surely  and  so  soon  wreck  the 
Avery  Company,  that  it  was  perfectly  natural  to  give  short 
shrift  to  any  proposition  which  looked  in  that  direction.  At 
the  same  time,  Mr.  Lyon's  inability  to  question  the  finality  of 
pre.-ent  social  arrangements  ,«eemed  to  Halleck  loss  excusable 
than  Graham's  incontinent  idealism. 

Halleck's  problem  was  to  lay  off  a  middle  ground  that 
might  be  occupied  as  a  ba.«is  of  compromise  between  the  pol- 
icy of  per7)etuating  conditions  and  the  policy  of  forcing  pre- 
mature applicatioTi  of  theories. 

At  present  Graham  was  telling  the  tnith  in  this  sense: — 
This  is  the  way  the  people  of  the  Avorld  will  work  together 
■when  they  have  become  adapted  to  working  together  in  this 
way!  At  the  same  time,  David  Lyon  was  telling  only  a  half 
truth,  even  if  it  was  a  less  impotent  platitude  in  form,  when 
he  insisted  that  Graham  was  inflating  his  balloon  with  non- 
sen.se,  because  people  are  not  ready  to  work  together  in  that 
way  now. 

136 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


The  directions  were  plain  enough  in  which  the  two  parties 
must  move,  if  they  were  ever  to  meet  on  common  ground. 
The  Company  must  give  some  recognition  to  the  principle 
that  business  should  not  be  autocracy  but  partnership.  Labor 
must  concede  that  transition  from  the  present  system  to  more 
democratic  methods  must  be  by  shorter  steps  than  the  ulti- 
matum to  the  Company  demanded. 

Halleck  had  not  expected  Graham  to  say  anything  which 
they  had  not  fully  discussed  more  than  once,  but  he  had 
hoped  that  something  might  occur  to  furnish  a  clue  to  a  prac- 
tical suggestion.  He  had  been  disappointed.  He  saw  no 
immediate  prospect  of  conciliation.  There  was  no  reason  to 
believe  that  either  ]iarty  would  at  present  modify  its  views. 

Kissinger  had  been  a  hearer  of  another  sort.  He  had  come 
early,  and  had  stationed  himself  almost  within  touch  of  the 
platform.  He  was  convinced  in  advance  of  nuich  that  Gra- 
ham would  say,  and  of  more  that  he  might  not  say.  His 
problem  was,  can  it  be  made  real?  Is  there  a  transformation 
of  energy  by  which  unworkable  truth  may  be  substituted  for 
workable  error? 

Neither  intellect  nor  will  was  decisive  in  Kissinger,  but 
each  was  a  menial  to  his  sentiments.  The  strike  had  rudely 
awakened  him  to  his  situation.  He  had  never  been  compelled 
before  to  recognize  the  ugly  facts.  For  a  week  the  truth  had 
been  staring  him  in  the  face  that  the  section  of  life  which 
interested  him  most  was  practically  a  beggar's  auction. 
Neither  his  thoughts  nor  his  actions  could  bid  anything 
which  would  tend  to  secure  the  things  that  his  sympathies 
desired. 

If  actuality  may  be  measured  by  degrees  of  assent  and  dis- 
sent, the  Utopias  which  Kissinger  knew  by  heart  were  more 
real  to  him  than  the  business  system  in  which  he  earned  his 
living.  They  enlisted  his  affection,  while  business  merely  com- 
manded his  obedience.  But  the  better  societies,  in  which  his 
imagination  sought  refuge,  seemed  to  him  to  be  separated 
from  the  literal  world  by  a  chasm  as  impassable  as  the  spaces 
between  the  planets. 

From  the  literature  of  social  aspiration  Kissinger  had  ab- 
sorbed the  poetry  of  prophecy  without  the  logic.  The  brighter 
the  visions  the  more  the  pity,  as  he  brooded  over  them,  that 
there  was  no  means  of  merging  them  with  our  social  system. 

137 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


Crahanrs  contrast  between  ]>eoplc  and  cajiital  as  the  stand- 
ard of  social  valne,  and  his  distinction  between  antocracy 
and  denHH-racy  a.s  principles  of  ])usine.ss  manap,ement,  af- 
fected Kissinger  as  oricinal  discoveries.  They  seemed  to 
point  out  a  practical  path  from  the  unreal  actual  world  to  the 
impossible  real  world.  At  the  same  time  they  p;ave  him  such 
a  sense  of  vindication  and  of  power  as  Adams  and  Leverricr 
may  be  supposed  to  have  felt,  after  probing  the  heavens  at  the 
])oint  they  designated  had  resulted  in  the  discovery  of 
Neptune. 

But  more  important  still  for  Kissinger,  although  he  was 
not  yet  aware  of  it,  was  the  effect  of  Graham's  personal 
equation.  If  the  logic  that  Graham  used  had  come  to  Kissin- 
ger's attention  in  some  other  way,  he  might  simply  have 
woven  it  into  the  tissue  of  his  dreams,  without  suspicion  that 
it  closed  the  circuit  of  reality.  The  fateful  fact  was  that 
Graham  seemed  to  be  a  working  demonstration  of  the  validity 
of  his  reasoning.  He  incarnated  the  principles.  He  was 
actually  moving  on  the  world  with  the  force  of  the  new  ideas, 
and  the  world's  resistance  proved  the  energy  of  the  impact. 
Graham's  role  was  not  impotent  yearning.  It  was  grappling 
the  world  with  a  kind  of  strength  able  to  cope  with  its  owm 
1)0 wer.    For  Kissinger,  Graliam  was  the  Word  made  flesh. 

Instead  of  starting  directly  towards  home,  Lyon  and 
Edgerly  turned  north  in  State  Street  for  a  stroll  through  a 
section  of  the  town  which  they  seldom  visited.  They  had 
no  special  interest  in  the  surroundings,  but  the  very  dreari- 
ness was  a  magnet,  and  they  wanted  to  avoid  a  route  in  which 
they  might  meet  acquaintances. 

They  had  been  jostled  apart  by  the  swaying  of  the  crowd 
during  Graham's  address.  Each  had  indulged  his  own  re- 
flections, and  at  first,  after  reaching  the  open  air,  neither 
.seemed  inclined  to  talk.  When  they  had  walked  far  enough 
to  have  a  comfortable  area  of  sidewalk  to  themselves,  Edgerly 
began,  more  in  the  manner  of  soliloquizing  than  of  speaking 
to  Lyon : — 

"It  had  two  chief  effects  on  me.  In  the  first  place,  I  never 
get  over  my  wonder  at  the  homeopathic  quantity  of  thought 
that  can  be  made  to  go  with  a  crowd ;  and  then,  if  there  is  any 
nourishment  in  that  sort  of  baby  food,  what  keeps  all  the 
world  from  building  up  on  it  at  once?" 

138 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


Lyon  did  not  reply  for  a  moment.  There  was  nothing  to 
show  that  he  had  heard  Edgerly.  He  seemed  to  be  turning 
over  thoughts  of  his  own.  When  he  spoke,  it  was  in  such  an 
absent  tone  that  Edgerly  suspected  he  had  dismissed  the 
subject  of  the  meeting  altogether,  and  was  thinking  about 
something  else. 

"You  don't  realize  the  apartness  of  the  academic  world, 
Ernest.  You  jobbers  of  ideas  are  sorting  over  the  whole  stock 
a  season  before  it  gets  to  the  retailers.  Of  course  everything 
you  see  in  the  show  windows  the  day  of  the  Spring  openings 
looks  out  of  date." 

"If  you'd  make  it  bargain  counter  remnants,"  laughed 
Edgerly,  "I  might  be  willing  to  stand  corrected." 

"I  couldn't  honestly  say  it  seemed  to  me  like  shopworn 
goods,"  objected  Lyon. 

"Of  course  I  don't  look  for  announcement  of  the  latesi 
scientific  discoveries  in  a  stump  speech,"  explained  Edgerly, 
"but  it  seems  like  a  hideous  waste  of  opportunity  to  have  the 
ear  of  so  many  people,  and  send  them  away  with  two  or  three 
primary  school  proverbs  that  are  as  plain  to  everybody  as  the 
nose  on  your  face." 

"You  learned  folks  flatter  yourselves  that  your  abstractions 
furnish  the  go-round  for  the  world."  Lyon's  indifference 
had  changed  to  animation.  "The  fact  of  the  business  is, 
primary  school  proverbs  are  the  real  pillars  of  civilization. 
Just  think  why  we  spend  millions  every  year  on  our  public 
schools.  It  isn't  to  manufacture  advanced  thinkers.  It's 
mostly  to  convince  the  latest  accessions  to  the  world's  igno- 
rance that  'three  from  tw^o  you  cannot  take.'  When  they 
have  had  so  much  beaten  into  their  heads,  the  majority  of 
the  newcomers  have  to  leave  school  and  hustle  for  a  living. 
If  they  ever  learn  anything  more,  that  their  job  doesn't  teach, 
they  have  to  catch  it  on  the  fly." 

"All  the  more  reason  why  they  should  not  be  put  off  with 
cheap  talk  when  they  line  up  for  a  lesson." 

"No  matter  who  you  are,"  insisted  Lyon,  "you  have  to  pull 
off  a  certain  amount  of  sleight-of-hand  to  make  a  crowd 
listen.    That  ought  not  to  count  against  him." 

"I'm  not  condemning  what  he  said,  but  simply  regretting 
what  he  didn't  say,"  In  judging  Graham  by  an  impossible 
standard,  Edgerly  was  at  least  partially  sincere.  He  merely 
assumed  his  own  personal  demands  as  a  measure  for  the  pub- 

139 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


lie.  He  .-iiid  wlint  he  wduld  li;i\"e  stood  by  if  his  own  kind 
had  i-ouiposod  (iraham's  andionco.  While  he  was  thns.  to  a 
certain  extent,  betraying  his  ignorance  of  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  mental  needs  of  the  many  and  those  of  his  own 
chiss,  he  was  intentionally  overdoing  the  matter,  for  the  sake 
of  drawing  Lyon  ont.  The  brothers-in-law  had  debated  social 
qnestions  enough  to  understand  each  other's  ])rejudices. 
ICdgerly's  sympathies  were  with  Graham,  but  he  was  experi- 
menting to  see  whether  a  little  op])osition  would  bring  Lyon 
to  the  rescue.  The  plan  worked  better  than  he  exi)ected;  but 
it  was  less  because  Lyon  was  caught  by  the  trick,  than  be- 
cause he  had  been  trying  to  think  how  he  would  conduct  the 
case,  if  he  had  accepted  a  retainer  from  Graham. 

"Suppose  you  had  listened  for  Father,  Ernest,  not  for  your- 
self;  would  it  have  seemed  so  very  commonplace?" 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  he  hasn't  heard  everj'  one  of 
those  things  a  thousand  times  over?" 

"That  doesn't  tell  the  story.  We've  all  heard  a  thousand 
things  a  thousand  times  over,  that  w-e  have  no  idea  of  putting 
into  practice,  except  in  a  Pickwickian  sense.  AVe  should  have 
had  the  New  Testament  under  life  sentence  to  solitary  con- 
finement long  ago,  if  it  had  got  freedom  enough  to  assert  itself 
literally.  There's  no  disturbance  in  the  folk-lore  that  God 
is  the  Father  of  us  all,  so  long  as  the  rest  of  the  legend  runs 
that  God  hands  out  all  the  good  and  evil  of  our  lot,  just  as 
they  come.  There's  nothing  to  do  but  submit.  It's  an  en- 
tirely different  affair  if  we  read  between  the  lines  that  not 
the  justice  of  God  but  the  cussedness  of  man  gives  some  of 
the  children  the  apple,  and  the  rest  the  core.  With  that 
vtTsion  before  the  public,  to  remind  ourselves  that  we  are  all 
one  family  spells  revolution.  The  startling  thing  about  these 
[^latitudes  of  Graham  is  that  he  means  them.  They  are  not 
mythology.  They  are  items  that  he  proposes  to  figure  into 
future  Avery  Companj'-  contracts.  When  they  are  pious 
figures  of  syjeech  they  are  bread  pills.  As  straight  business 
propositions  they  are  bombshells.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  they  have  force  enough  to  break  into  the  system." 

Edgerly  could  not  afford  to  go  beyond  objection  to  Gra- 
ham's choice  of  weapons.  Criticism  of  the  purpose  for  which 
he  used  them  w^ould  be  a  confession  that  he  was  playing  a 
part.  To  hold  Lyon  as  long  as  possible  on  his  prasent  course, 
Edgerly  merely  varied  the  lorm  of  his  previous  comment: — 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


'M  wish  I  could  see  any  prospect  that  toy-pistol  practice  would 
develop  the  necessary  penetration." 

''Well,"  re.sponded  Lyon  shai7)ly,  "he  hinted  at  two  or 
three  kinds  of  attack  that  we  could  stop  only  by  brute  force. 
If  either  of  them  ever  got  a  footing  inside  our  lines  it  would 
mean  radical  reorganization  of  business. 

"For  instance,"  continued  Lyon,  "take  his  illustration  of 
the  brothers  and  sisters.  The  idea  that  men  are  equal  in 
earning  powers  is  too  silly  to  talk  about,  but  he  didn't  make 
any  such  claim.  On  the  other  hand,  I  don't  believe  there  is 
one  business  man  in  a  thousand  who  wouldn't  endorse  the 
abstract  proposition  that  people  ought  to  have  only  what  they 
etirn.  We  tumble  over  ourselves  when  we  try  to  justify 
everybody's  holdings  so  long  as  they  are  legal.  If  we  couldn't 
nm  a  steel  plant  without  unloading  on  our  customers  a  per 
cent  of  defective  rails  equal  to  the  ratio  of  good  for  nothing 
spenders  that  our  beautiful  system  has  produced  in  the  last 
generation,  we  should  say  we  were  dubs  at  the  business.  In- 
stead of  insisting  that  defective  rails  have  as  good  claim  to 
acceptance  as  })erfect  ones,  we  should  admit  that  we  had  still 
something  to  learn  about  processes,  and  we  should  give  our 
experts  no  peace  till  they  had  told  us  how  to  improve  our 
output.  We  know  perfectly  well  that  thousands  of  people  are 
flourishing  without  earning  anything  at  all,  and  other  thou- 
sands earn  various  fractions  of  what  they  get.  Of  course 
that  means  so  much  taken  indirectly  from  the  earnings  of 
other  people.  We  refuse  to  admit  it,  because  we  can't  see 
how  far  the  admission  might  carry  us.  Any  one  who  has  his 
brains  with  him  must  sooner  or  later  discover  that  such  a 
position  is  a  logical  and  moral  stultification.  We  say  it  is 
!)usiness  to  learn  how  to  keep  flaws  out  of  steel  rails,  but  it 
is  not  business  to  learn  how  to  keep  flaws  out  of  the  justice 
due  to  the  men  that  make  the  rails!  It  may  be  a  nursery 
amusement  to  turn  the  light  on  such  an  absurdity,  but  it  will 
be  revolution  number  one  when  business  gets  honest  enough 
to  acknowledge  the  contradiction." 

Edgerly  was  ready  to  hold  his  breath  for  fear  of  stumbling 
into  an  interruption.  His  innocent  concession,  "I  see  that, 
of  course,"  was  offered  less  as  a  minor  retraction  than  as  a 
query  about  the  rest  of  the  argument. 

"Then,"  Lyon  went  on,  "it  would  be  revolution  number 
two  if  we  should  take  literally  the  proposition  that  business 

141 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


is  essentially  partiiorsliij).  Uusinoss  today  rcc(>«;iiizes  the 
partnership  element  only  at  the  stock  end.  In  its  ownership 
and  operation  it  is  a  few  men  making  plans  and  using  a  great 
many  more  men  as  tools.  Wlien  we  get  down  to  the  real 
facts,  we  find  that  these  men  who  rate  as  tools  of  the  trade 
have  a  larger  stake  in  the  Inisiness  than  most  of  the  men  who 
own  the  stock.  For  the  operatives  the  businass  is  life.  For 
the  stockholders  the  business  is  only  an  incident  of  life.  Yet 
the  stockholdei's  or  the  financiers  behind  them  have  the  long 
end  of  the  rights,  while  the  workers  have  chiefly  duties.  It 
turns  out  that  business  is  occupying  the  castle  in  the  air  today, 
while  theorists  like  Graham  are  getting  their  feet  j)lantcd  on 
the  ground.  There  is  neither  rhyme  nor  rea.«on  in  a  few 
people  taking  possession  of  the  world's  opportunities,  and  is- 
suing notice  to  the  great  majority,  'You  may  stay  on  the  earth 
just  as  long  a.?  you  can  make  youreelves  useful  to  us  by  obey- 
ing our  orders.'  Exploiting  the  opportunities  of  the  world  is 
a  cooperative  process.  The  scale  of  title  to  the  results  of  the 
process  is  bound  to  be  wrong,  if  it  is  calculated  on  the  idea 
that  some  of  the  people  engaged  in  the  jirocess  have  proprie- 
tary rights  in  the  process  while  others  have  not.  If  we  were 
not  doing  business  under  an  optical  illusion,  Ave  should  see 
that  ownership  of  opportunity  in  the  world  is  usui'pation, 
unless  it  is  universally  distributed.  Every  man  born  is  an 
authentic  copy  of  nature's  passport  to  join  in  the  process&s  of 
life,  and  to  enjoy  all  the  rewards  and  emoluments  in  the  ratio 
of  his  own  contribution  to  the  common  enterprise.  The  only 
just  limit  is  the  right  of  every  body  else  to  share  on  the  same 
basis." 

Edgerly  w^as  too  much  astonished  to  make  any  further  at- 
tempt at  concealment.  He  drew  away  to  the  edge  of  the  side- 
walk, eyeing  Lyon  as  though  he  had  sudden  suspicions  of 
mistaken  identity.  "Give  me  time  to  collect  myself,  Logan," 
he  stammered.  "Are  you  stringing  me,  or  is  this  the  latest 
variation  of  'Saul  also?'  I  can  imagine  Wall  Street  pulling 
for  free  silver,  and  the  Steel  Trust  lobbying  for  repeal  of  the 
tariff,  but  there  must  be  a  mental  aberration  somewhere  when 
I  seem  to  hear  you  outgrahaming  Graham." 

"My  death  of  strangulation  will  be  on  your  conscience," 
warned  Lyon  melodramatically,  "if  you  stop  me  again  before 
I  have  had  my  say.  There  remains  revolution  number  three. 
Whether  we  had  one  and  two  in  their  proper  order,  or  started 

142 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


with  three,  would  make  no  difference  in  the  end.  Either 
would  bring  the  other  two  as  necessary  riders." 

Lyon  hesitated  a  moment,  with  the  proviso  that  he  had  not 
scouted  the  ground  quite  as  far  ahead  in  this  case  a.s  in  the 
others.  Then,  as  though  he  had  found  his  reckoning,  he  pur- 
sued the  argument: — 

"The  fact  is,  since  we  are  all  men  together,  and  not  some 
men  and  some  things,  I  can  see  no  maintainable  reason  why 
putting  ourselves  into  the  making  of  a  business'  doesn't 
create,  for  all  of  us  alike,  a  right  of  suffrage  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  business." 

"Do  you  mean,"  broke  in  Edgerly,  in  spite  of  the  warning, 
"that  John  Smith's  work  in  the  power  house  entitles  him  to 
an  equal  voice  with  your  father  in  the  Company's  affairs?" 

"I  certainly  do  not  mean  that  John  Smith's  work  in  the 
power  house  entitles  him  to  equal  voice  with  the  President  of 
the  Company,  and  more  than  that,  I  know  that  God  Almighty 
couldn't  make  their  voices  equal,  unless  he  reprocessed  both. 
What  I  mean  is  that  manhood  suffrage,  for  all  it  is  worth, 
belongs  to  John  Smith  of  the  power  house,  in  his  relation  to 
the  Company,  by  the  same  right,  and  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  it  belongs  to  him  in  the  state." 

Lyon  seemed  to  be  casting  about  for  a  clearer  way  of  ex- 
pressing his  thought.    His  next  approach  was  indirect. 

"Our  ideas  of  democratic  government  are  four-fifths  fiction 
anyhow.  That  Russian  Jew  in  the  doorway  has  probably 
got  his  naturalization  papers,  and  unless  he  forfeits  his  rights 
by  crime  no  one  can  expatriate  him.  He  is  an  American 
citizen  as  much  as  we  are,  and  the  whole  power  of  government 
may  be  invoked  to  keep  any  one  from  depriving  him  of  his 
rights  under  the  law.  That's  one  side  of  it.  Now  what  share 
has  he  in  the  government?  Why,  we  say  he  has  the  same 
share  that  I  have,  and  it  is  represented  by  one  vote  apiece. 
That's  where  our  hallucination  begins,  and  where  it  fondly 
lingers.  Instead  of  being  the  crowning  glory  of  citizenship, 
that  vote  represents  an  irreducible  minimum  of  political  in- 
fluence, which  grades  up  to  the  boss  rule  or  the  popular  idola- 
try by  which  one  man  sways  the  nation.  The  ballot  is  merely 
a  clumsy  device  for  registering  the  public  opinion  which  is 
formed  by  other  means.  Freedom  to  exert  oneself  com- 
pletely in  shaping  opinion  is  the  substantial  democratic  asset. 
A  hundred  members  of  a  woman's  club  of  the  right  sort  may 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


do  more  to  tlecido  llic  next  elootion  tlinn  a  hundred  thousand 
masculine  nonentities  with  votes  in  their  liands.  Our  l^us- 
siiin  friend  haek  there  may  caneel  my  vote,  but  he  can't  out- 
weiijjh  my  inlhienee  till  he  gets  a  thousand  means  of  making 
himself  felt  that  I  can  use  and  he  can't.  I'm  not  jealous  of 
him.  because  the  interests  that  T  represent  are  able  to  form 
comijinations  enough  to  maintain  a  fair  equilibrium  with  the 
interests  that  get  his  support." 

After  considering  a  moment,  Lyon  drew  his  conclusion. 
"That  comes  pretty  near  furnishing  a  model  for  industrial 
equity.  John  Smith  of  the  power  house  can  never  w^eigh  as 
much  in  the  business  as  any  one  of  a  thousand  other  men  all 
the  way  along  up  the  line,  not  to  s])eak  of  those  at  the  top; 
but  his  share  in  the  work  gives  him  a  perfectly  good  claim  to 
make  his  suffrage  felt  j)recisely  one  John  Smith's  worth  in 
the  Company;  and  perha})s  a  thousand  John  Smiths  ought 
occasionally  to  combine  and  defeat  the  head  of  the  concern. 
A  few  trifling  questions  in  arithmetic  wnll  have  to  be  worked 
out,  to  be  sure,  before  the  claims  are  adjusted;  but  we  shall 
simply  be  hanging  on  to  a  semi-barbarous  makeshift,  instead 
of  arriving  at  an  enlightened  organization,  so  long  as  a  few 
dozen  of  us  are  the  Company,  and  the  thousands  mere  casual 
hirelings." 

They  had  wandered  west,  almost  to  the  river,  then  north, 
and  were  now  sauntering  east  on  Monroe  Street.  As  they 
reached  the  corner  of  La  Salle,  the  deserted  brokers'  high- 
way, in  the  dusk  of  the  Sunday  evening,  was  as  gruesome  as 
a  prison  corridor.  Edgerly  stopped,  and  with  a  sort  of 
cro.ssing-policeman's  gesture  halted  Lyon.  The  place  had 
prompted  a  ghoulish  thought.  "What's  to  hinder  me  from 
turning  an  honest  dollar,  Logan,  by  dropping  into  one  of  the 
newspaper  offices  and  selling  them  your  interview?  I  reckon 
'tw^ould  be  a  scoop  that  would  crowd  Graham's  stuff  out  of 
the  morning  edition." 

The  conceit  tickled  Lyon's  fancy  too,  for  a  moment. 
"Wouldn't  it  scorch  the  sheets!"  he  chuckled.  Then  the  asso- 
ciations of  the  region  seemed  to  recall  him  to  reality.  "But 
what's  the  use?"  he  muttered,  with  a  long  breath  that  might 
have  meant  either  regret  or  resolution.  "The  only  difference 
between  me  and  the  rest  of  the  Company  is  that  they  don't 
believe  a  word  of  these  things,  w^hile  I  subscribe  to  them  in 
the  abstract  but  don't  believe  they  are  available.     It  comes 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    UNCONVINCED 


to  one  and  the  same  thing  at  last.  Graham  gets  it  harder 
from  me  tomorrow  morning  than  from  any  one  else  in  the 
bunch." 

"If  they  are  true,"  shifted  Edgerly,  "how  do  you  know  they 
are  not  available?" 

"Simply  because  the  ordinary  man's  expectation  of  com- 
bining knowledge  w^ith  a  saving  sense  of  proportion  isn't  an 
insurable  risk.  The  same  truth  makes  one  man  a  good  citi- 
zen and  another  a  dangerous  crank.  We  can't  admit  these 
things  within  the  range  of  working  influence,  because  there 
is  no  guarantee  that  they  w^ouldn't  be  carried  to  the  extreme 
of  upsetting  everything.  I  hadn't  thought  of  it  till  this 
moment,  but  it  just  occurs  to  me  that  I  might  as  well  schedule 
myself  as  incipient  revolution  number  four.  You  can't  make 
yourself  surer  of  a  practical  man's  contempt  than  by  telling 
him  he  has  obligations  to  truths  not  yet  available.  I  find  I'm 
drifting  into  the  class  of  suspects  who  would  have  it  the  most 
important  business  of  business  to  make  truths  available,  in- 
stead of  ruling  them  out  of  consideration  till  brought  to  terms 
by  outside  force." 

They  called  a  taxi  at  the  Palmer  House,  and  arrived  at 
David  Lyon's  just  in  time  to  calm  the  first  stages  of  panic. 
The  family  party  had  nearly  persuaded  itself  that  the  ab- 
sentees were  victims  of  violence. 


145 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   MORALIST 


THE    MORALIST 


X 

THE   MORALIST 

"The  key  to  the  social  struggle  in  its  present  stage  is  the 
question : — Shall  the  social  aim  be  to  use  men  for  the  sake 
of  capital,  or  to  use  capital  for  the  sake  of  men?" 


SOCIALLY  the  Patriarchs'  Club  still  ranked  first  among 
the  commercial  organizations  of  Chicago.  There  had 
been  a  time  when  no  local  enterprise  of  large  scope  was  sure 
of  success  until  it  had  received  the  stamp  of  the  Club's  ap- 
proval. During  this  period,  little  of  the  work  that  made  Chi- 
cago the  metropolis  of  the  Middle  West  was  finished  without 
the  active  aid  of  the  Club,  or  some  of  its  members.  If  its 
prestige  had  declined,  it  was  not  because  the  average  char- 
acter of  the  Patriarchs  had  changed,  but  because  growth  of  the 
city  necessarily  distributed  leadership  over  a  wider  area. 

When  the  original  members  were  in  their  usual  places  at 
the  Club  dinners,  everything  that  occurred  had  the  impor- 
tance of  a  public  event.  Whether  the  Club  endorsed  opinions 
expressed  by  speakers,  or  merely  listened  without  committing 
itself,  or  repudiated  the  views,  the  fact  was  always  consid- 
ered worthy  of  report  and  usually  of  editorial  comment. 

If  the  smile  or  the  frown  of  the  Patriarchs  was  no  longer 
as  decisive  as  formerly,  there  was  still  no  equal  number  of 
men  in  the  city  whose  collective  opinion  of  a  business  propo- 
sition would  carry  greater  weight.  They  were  the  bulwarks 
of  Chicago's  most  conservative  financial  traditions. 

The  last  meeting  of  the  Club  for  the  season  was  to  have 
been  addressed  by  the  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor. 
Illness  had  compelled  him  to  abandon  the  trip  at  Pittsburg, 
and  his  regrets  had  reached  the  Club  Secretary  only  a  few 
hours  before  the  time  of  the  banquet.  Quick  work  by  the 
executive  committee  had  induced  Edgerly  to  stand  in  the 
gap. 

It  had  been  thought  best  not  to  advise  the  members  of  the 
disappointment,  and  they  were  present  in  nearly  full  num- 
bers, each  with  the  guest  that  the  rules  allowed.  Under  any 
circumstances  it  would  have  been  a  formidable  array.  While 
it  could  not  have  been  truthfully  described  as  the  brains  of 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


Chicago,  nearly  every  man  in  the  (■onii)any  was  in  the  front 
ranks  of  his  specialty ;  and  between  members  and  guests  all 
the  princij>al  divisions  of  business  and  the  i)rofossions  were 
represented. 

To  be  perfectly  at  ease  in  talking  to  such  a  body,  one  should 
have  a  subject  so  remote  from  the  ordinary  interests  of  the 
hearers  that  innnunity  of  i)repossession  might  be  assumed. 
Even  then,  to  rob  the  ordeal  completely  of  its  terrors,  time 
for  ample  preparation  would  be  indispensable. 

Edgerly  could  take  refuge  in  neither  of  these  conditions. 
Indeed,  he  had  partly  consented  and  ])artly  proposed  to  di.s- 
cuss  a  subject  with  respect  to  which  it  was  safe  to  reckon  every 
man  present  as  both  suspicious  and  sensitive.  It  Avas  a  sub- 
ject, too.  with  which  all  his  dealings  had  been  purely  schol- 
astic, lie  had  an  ample  supply  of  raw  material  for  itsS  treat- 
ment, but  if  he  had  allowed  himself  more  time  for  reflection 
he  might  not  have  risked  the  imprudence  of  trying  to  work 
it  over,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  into  publishable  con- 
clusions. 

Although  Edgerly  had  never  been  accused  by  his  univer- 
sity colleagues  of  over-weening  self-distrust,  his  first  inventory 
of  the  social  authorities  grouped  at  the  tables  had  dampened 
his  tissurance  into  limp  fear  that  his  undertaking  was  both 
farcical  and  imprudent.  lie  could  not  remember  that  he  had 
ever  had  a  more  thoroughly  miserable  time  with  himself  than 
during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  seemingly  interminable 
process  of  .'serving  the  dinner. 

On  the  other  liand,  Edgerly  wa.«  one  of  a  half  dozen  men 
at  the  University  who  were  adepts  at  a  peculiar  art  of  linguis- 
tic legerdeniain.  It  was  a  manipulation  of  polysyllabic  dic- 
tion, and  rapid-fire  elocution,  that  might  not  be  admired,  and 
might  even  Vje  resented,  but  it  could  not  be  resisted.  Its  ef- 
fectiveness in  compelling  a  hearing  increased  with  the  gen- 
eral intelligence  and  self-importance  of  the  public  on  which 
it  was  ])racticed.  It  kept  the  most  blase  audience  taking 
notice.  It  piqued  susj)icion  that,  for  better  or  for  worse,  it  was 
not  just  what  it  seemed.  The  higher  the  hearers  rated  them- 
selves in  the  scale  of  sophistication,  the  more  they  were  bound 
to  watch  out  not  to  miss  a  trick.  It  was  a  species  of  audible 
puzzle-picture.  At  one  moment  it  was  apparently  an  en- 
durance te.«t  of  verbal  and  vocal  acrobatics.  At  the  next,  it 
had  turned  the  assembly  into  involuntary  clinical  material, 

150 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


for  measuring  capacity  to  distinguish  between  opulence  of 
thought  and  resounding  permutations  of  the  vocabulary. 
Again  it  was  provocative  implication  that  the  stylistic  pyro- 
technics were  merely  incidental  excitements,  to  pique  the 
ennui  of  the  undiscerning ;  while  the  occult  thread  of  esoteric 
wisdom  would  manifest  itself  throughout  to  those  of  elect 
understanding. 

Edgerly  was  in  doubt  how  much  of  this  section  of  his 
equipment  it  would  be  safe  to  unlimber  for  use  upon  the 
present  company ;  but  the  sense  of  having  it  in  reserve  offset 
some  of  his  compunctions,  by  affording  the  prospect  of  a  par- 
tial means  of  escaping  the  full  penalties  of  extemporaneous- 
ness. 

Yet  this  was  not  the  whole  case.  Edgerly  had  never  flat- 
tered himself  that  he  was  cast  in  an  heroic  mould ;  but  when 
accident  thrust  on  him  this  opportunity,  the  decisive  factor 
was  the  feeling  that  he  would  be  showing  a  yellow  streak  if 
he  did  not  make  the  most  of  it.  He  frankly  believed  it  was 
plain  rawness  in  business  men  to  bar  his  kind  from  their 
councils.  He  cherished  no  conceit  that  the  world  would  be 
better  off  under  an  autocracy  of  theors^ ;  but  he  was  sure  that 
more  cross-fertilization  between  theory  and  practice  would 
improve  both.  He  had  never  been  guilty  of  the  pedantic  ar- 
rogance which  assumes  that  practical  men  are  an  inferior 
caste.  On  the  contrary,  his  acquaintance  w4th  Chicago  bus- 
iness men  had  taught  him  to  admire  and  envy  the  superiority 
of  certain  powers  in  them  which  usually  remain  iiidimentary 
in  the  scholarly  type.  At  the  same  time,  he  had  no  doubt 
that  the  two  kinds  of  people  needed  each  other,  and  that  all 
the  world's  work  would  be  done  better  after  they  had  ar- 
ranged a  more  intimate  division  of  labor. 

A  precocious  approach  to  this  view  had  determined 
Edgerly's  choice  of  a  career.  His  father  was  a  prominent 
New  England  cotton  manufacturer  who  had  hoped  that  his 
son  would  succeed  him  in  the  business.  Edgerly  had  left 
Yale,  however,  with  the  uppermost  thought  that  it  did  not 
call  for  the  whole  of  a  man  to  deal  with  the  problems  of 
things,  especially  since  we  had  scarcely  made  a  decent  be- 
ginning w4th  the  problems  of  people.  The  only  net  gain 
upon  this  conclusion  that  he  could  credit  to  the  years  of  his 
apprenticeship  as  tutor,  was  the  conviction  that  he  had  never 
yet  learned  anything  worth  knowing.     Without  a  distinct 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


notion  of  wli;i(  (lio  Oormans  miiiht  do  to  make  his  previous 
al>orlivo  studies  fruitful,  he  got  the  idea  that  they  were  nearer 
than  anyhody  else  to  tlie  sources  of  kno\vled<2;e;  and  he  re- 
solved to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  them  in  quest  of  a  scientific 
method  and  program. 

Shortly  after  their  arrival  in  Berlin,  Avhile  each  wa.s  trying 
to  convince  himself  that  he  was  not  desperately  homesick, 
Edgerly  and  ITalleck  had  met  one  Sunday  morning  at  the 
American  chapel.  Although  they  had  never  com))eted  in 
the  same  events,  they  recognized  each  other  as  former  mem- 
hers  of  rival  athletic  organizations.  Under  the  circumstances 
this  was  an  immediate  hond  of  union.  They  soon  discovered 
deeper  congenialities,  and  the  upshot  was  that  they  became 
almo.^.  inseparable  during  their  whole  stay  in  the  city.  Al- 
though the  one  made  theology  and  the  other  philosophy  his 
center  of  operations,  they  found  that  their  specific  interests 
led  close  to  the  same  path.  With  the  exception  of  a  semester 
which  Edgerly  devoted  to  experimental  psychology  vnth. 
Wundt  in  Leip.sic,  there  was  no  time  when  they  were  not 
hearing  one  or  more  courses  together.  If  they  did  not  reach 
identical  opinions,  common  factors  in  establishing  their 
methods  of  thinking  were  the  lectures  of  Pfleiderer,  and 
"Weiss,  and  Paulsen,  and  Harnack,  and  Schmoller,  and  Wag- 
ner and  Simmel. 

The  two  men  left  Berlin  with  the  feeling  that  they  had 
learned  to  look  at  the  ranges  of  truth  which  it  would  be  their 
business  to  study,  through  the  best  instruments  that  had  been 
constructed  up  to  date.  In  some  respects  they  were  more 
oppressed  by  their  own  ignorance  than  when  they  left  Amer- 
ica, but  by  the  same  token  they  were  in  less  danger  of  ob- 
session by  other  people's  presumed  knowledge.  They  had 
become  acquainted  with  the  rules  of  evidence,  and  with  the 
state  of  the  testimony  at  present  in  hand,  and  they  believed  it 
would  be  their  own  fault  if  they  did  not  give  a  good  account 
of  themselves  as  independent  thinkers.  They  felt  strong  in 
acquaintance  not  only  with  their  own  powers  and  limitations, 
but  also  with  the  resources  of  other  specialists,  and  how  both 
to  consider  their  opinions  with  due  reserve  and  to  draw  on 
them  for  reinforcement. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  transcendentalist  or  the  ascetic 
about  Edgerly.  He  was  an  honest  feeder.  He  kept  himself 
trained  as  fine  as  a  Fort  Sheridan  trooper.     He  could  play 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


as  lustily  as  he  could  work,  aud  he  had  never  let  himself  go 
stale  by  skimping  his  quota  of  amusement ;  but  he  made  no 
pretense  of  not  taking  himself  seriously  when  he  was  on 
duty. 

Not  in  his  class  room  only,  but  whenever  he  was  called 
upon  for  opinions  in  public  or  private,  Edgerly  was  governed 
by  modest  assurance  that  he  had  a  mission.  He  did  not  im- 
pose himself  as  an  oracle.  He  did  not  whine  if  the  world 
failed  to  dance  to  his  piping.  He  simply  compelled  himself 
to  be  genuine.  He  put  his  best  into  his  tale  of  work,  and 
turned  it  into  the  common  stock,  without  wondering  that 
the  world  seldom  took  it  at  his  own  appraisal.  He  believed 
that  every  piece  of  real  work  is  a  part  of  the  world's  struc- 
tural material ;  but  he  was  cheerfully  resigned  to  the  economy 
which  consumes  most  of  the  material  without  awarding  in- 
dividual credits. 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Edgerly  consented  to  act  as  emer- 
gency man  for  the  Patriarchs.  He  was  certain  that  he  saw 
some  things  truer  than  they  did,  and  that  it  would  promote 
social  progress  if  they  could  be  convinced  of  their  error.  Not 
that  he  ever  expected  anybody  to  be  convinced  of  any- 
thing by  one  argument.  But  these  men  were  symptoms 
of  social  conditions.  He  would  apply  a  first  treatment  to 
the  symptoms,  and  as  it  was  sure  to  be  followed  up  from  time 
to  time  by  other  men,  along  with  treatment  that  went  un- 
derneath the  symptoms,  the  appropriate  effects  might  ap- 
pear in  their  sons'  or  their  sons'  sons'  generation.  The  tor- 
ments that  he  endured  early  in  the  evening  were  real  enough, 
but  it  was  only  half  true  that  he  took  them  as  the  proper 
penalty  of  his  presumption.  That  was  his  cynical  version  of 
the  incident.  In  reality,  after  recovering  from  the  dispiriting 
effects  of  the  first  impressions,  he  did  not  dread  his  task.  He 
was  simply  tortured  by  the  pains  of  inhibition  while  waiting 
for  the  work  to  begin. 

After  the  intermission  of  ten  minutes  following  the  coffee, 
the  company  rearranged  itself  at  the  call  of  the  gavel. 

The  President  was  one  of  the  younger  members  of  the  Club, 
and  was  rather  exceptional  in  his  fluency  of  the  sort  of  speech 
which  makes  a  successful  presiding  officer.  The  circum- 
stances of  the  change  of  program  had  of  course  been  thor- 
oughly discussed,  and  it  only  remained  to  make  formal  an- 
nouncement of  the  withdrawal  and  of  the  rearrangement,  in 

153 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


terms  as  considerate  as  possible  of  the  feelings  of  the  siibsti- 
tnte.  The  President's  tact  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  His 
expressions  of  sympathy  for  the  expected  speaker,  and  of  re- 
gret that  he  was  unable  to  be  present,  were  no  more  com- 
plimentary than  his  references  to  the  courtesy  of  the  gentle- 
man who  had  consented  to  act  as  alternate.  After  facetious 
felicitation  of  the  company  upon  the  superfluity  of  going  out- 
side of  Chicago  for  enlightenment  upon  any  subject,  he  con- 
cluded:— ''1  have  therefore  great  pleasure  in  presenting  one 
of  our  numerous  exceptions  to  the  rule  that  remoteness  is 
necessary  to  reputation : — Our  fellow  townsman  Professor 
Edgerly,  who  will  speak  on  the  topic:  'An  Acadernic  View  of 
Labor  Probfems.'  " 

Because  the  President  had  especially  emphasized  the  in- 
debtedness of  the  Club  to  the  speaker  for  his  acceptance  of 
the  invitation  upon  such  short  notice,  his  reception  was  as 
cordial  as  though  he  had  been  a  first  choice.  In  restless  re- 
lief from  restraint,  Edgerly  started  at  once  with  a  partially 
chastened  sample  of  his  volubility. 

"Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen: — The  diplomatic  but  dep- 
recatory deliverances  of  the  amiable  presiding  genius  of  the 
evening,  reduced  to  relatively  intelligible  terms  of  the  ver- 
nacular, advertise  the  unterrified  local  opinion  that  it  would  be 
trea><on  to  Chicago  to  admit  that  a  casual  half  hour's  stroll,  in 
any  precinct  of  the  city  or  its  suburbs,  would  fail  to  encounter 
one  or  more  average  citizens  qualified  to  assume  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice,  and  to  adorn  indefinitely,  the  position  of  a 
cabinet  officer. 

"While  subscribing  without  reser\'ation  to  the  general  per- 
tinency of  this  equally  patriotic  and  perspicacious  sentiment, 
a  decent  respect  for  the  opinions  of  mankind  constrains  me  to 
present  my  humble  commiserations  that  Providence  has  cast 
your  lot  in  such  facile  proximity  to  a  population  of  telephone- 
order  duplicates. 

"Though  this  is  demonstrably  not  my  fault,  it  is  unde- 
niably your  misfortune,  and  I  am  painfully  conscious  of  my 
incompetence  to  mitigate  its  severity.  Indeed,  I  have  grave 
fears  that  my  obligations  as  a  faithful  friend  will  require  me 
to  accentuate  the  calamity. 

"At  the  outset  I  have  encountered  evidence  that  my  first 
well  meant  endeavors  to  forestall  embarrassment  have  gone 
wrong.     After  the  importunity  of  your  representatives  had 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


partially  overcome  013'^  reluctance  to  function  as  the  active 
agent  of  your  present  discomfiture,  my  final  surrender  to  their 
insistence  was  conditioned  upon  a  single  stipulation.  It  was 
nominated  in  the  bond  that  I  should  be  free  from  every  actual 
or  implied  restraint  upon  proclamation  of  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  as  the  spirit  might  give  me 
utterance. 

"That  this  covenant  affected  your  committee  as  sinister  in 
motive  and  portentous  in  prospect  is  patent  in  their  unusual 
precaution  of  excluding  the  representatives  of  the  press.  My 
first  use  of  the  liberty  guaranteed  under  the  terms  of  our 
agreement  must  be  in  protest  against  the  superfluous  and  re- 
grettable innovation.  If  it  should  be  adopted  into  the  penna- 
nent  policy  of  the  Patriarchs'  Club,  its  effects  would  be  mourn- 
fully deleterious  upon  the  high  and  civilizing  art  of  after- 
dinner  speaking.  Ever  foremost  among  the  spurs  to  achieve- 
ment in  thi^  laudal)le  field  of  endeavor,  Ls  the  promise  of 
learning  from  the  morning  papers  what  unsuspected  poten- 
cies of  variation,  and  inversion,  not  to  say  of  g>'roscopic  ter- 
giversation, are  latent  in  the  most  laboriously  lucid  periods, 
when  quickened  by  the  magic  touch  of  repertorial  and  man- 
agerial amplification ! 

"Let  me,  however,  ha.sten  to  relieve  your  minds,  gentle- 
men, of  any  apprehension  which  you  may  share  with  your 
committee,  that  I  come  to  you  w^ith  inflammatory  intention.?. 
On  the  contrary,  I  would  if  possible  warm  your  hearts  with  a 
breath  from  that  atmosphere  of  serene  seclusion,  of  sterilized 
segregation,  of  judicial  deliberation,  of  imperturbable  repose, 
of  catholic  comprehension  and  of  pacific  moderation,  which 
every  one  who  conjures  his  facts  from  a  perfervid  imagina- 
tion recognizes  as  the  calm  perpetual  environment  of  life  in 
the  up-to-date  university. 

"Proceeding  then  without  dilator^'  preliminaries  directly 
to  the  topic  of  the  evening,  I  have  no  doubt  you  have  already 
remarked  the  nice  discretion  with  which,  in  marking  off  the 
boundaries  of  my  discussion,  I  have  employed  the  definitive 
capabilities  of  the  indefinite  article.  By  the  phrase  "an  aca- 
demic view,"  instead  of  "the  academic  \^ew,"  the  subject  is 
lifted  at  once  from  the  low  plane  and  petty  province  of  prac- 
tical politics,  to  the  high  altitude  and  large  scope  of  broad 
generalization.  Indeed,  gentlemen,  such  a  phrase  as  "the 
academic  view"  would  be  not  only  solecistic  in  effect,  but  it 

155 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


would  bo  still  more  inaccurate  in  fact.  Tf  a  conjuuetiou  of 
opinion  corresj^wndinp;  to  the  ])hriu«e  should  ever  su])en'cne, 
it  ^Y()uld  indicate  either  concurrent  paralysis  of  academic  in- 
dividuality, or  such  wholesale  conquests  of  the  hitherto  nn- 
discoverable  that  the  occupation  of  universities  would  hence- 
forth be  ^ne.  At  the  present  moment,  no  subject  under  the 
sun  occurs  to  me,  from  the  nebular  hypothesis  to  denatured 
spelling,  in  connection  with  which  such  an  omen  as  unanim- 
ity among  academicians  is  conceivable." 

If  he  had  been  talking  to  the  Commercial  Travellers'  Asso- 
ciation, Edgerly  would  have  given  freer  rein  to  verbal  exuber- 
ance. In  deference  to  the  dignity  of  his  present  audience 
however,  he  had  kept  within  the  requirements  of  compara- 
tive circumspection,  and  he  was  approaching  transition  to  a 
more  serious  manner. 

"Yet,  I  must  call  your  attention  in  the  first  place,  gentle- 
men, to  the  paradoxical  fact  that  there  is  neverthela^is  an 
academic  point  of  view,  which  deserves  your  unremitting 
consideration.  This  is  the  first  plain  truth  which  I  reserved 
freedom  to  expose.  It  is  radical  enough,  when  all  its  impli- 
cations are  reviewed,  but  still  not  so  instantaneously  subver- 
sive that  it  could  not  safely  have  been  intnisted  to  the  re- 
porters. 

"During  the  recess  a  few  moments  ago,  your  President  re- 
marked to  me  that  I  did  not  appear  quite  like  myself  this 
evening;  that  I  betrayed  s^^mptoms  of  ner\'es.  I  admitted 
it,  and  pointed  out  that  the  thought  of  addressing  such  a  com- 
pany as  this  was  a  legitimate  excuse  for  nervousness.  Tooh !' 
he  replied,  'there's  no  call  to  be  nervous  here.  It's  the  most 
ignorant  crowd  you  could  get  together.  Not  a  man  of  them 
knows  anything  but  his  own  business!' 

"At  first  shock  I  was  blinded  by  the  irreverence  of  this 
apparent  slander,  and  I  could  not  have  been  induced  to  make 
myself  an  accomplice  after  the  fact  by  repeating  it,  if  I  had 
not  presently  detected  its  subtle  s\^mbolism.  It  was  a  pain- 
less method  of  giving  me  my  finish  by  a  stab  that  could  not 
be  parried.  The  cold  steel  was  so  adroitly  thrust  into  my 
soul  that  at  first  I  did  not  know  I  was  hurt.  But  my  eyes 
were  opened  and  I  saw  the  worst.  Even  on  this  plane  of 
amenity,  the  President  could  not  repress  his  impulse  to  glorify 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


his  own  class  at  the  expense  of  mine.  Translating  the  sinu- 
ous irony  into  direct  declaration,  this  was  what  he  said: — 
'Well  may  a  man  of  your  class  tremble  here.  These  are  the 
really  learned  men.  They  know  enough  to  know  their  own 
business.  They  do  not  pursue  the  academic  folly  of  trying 
to  know  everybody's  business  beside  their  own.' 

''Let  us  not  misunderstand  each  other,  gentlemen.  We 
are  equally  aware  that  among  practical  men  a  proposition 
is  damned,  beyond  hope  of  probation  or  purgatory  or  re- 
demption, the  moment  it  is  branded  with  the  defamatory  epi- 
thet 'academic'  Yet  I  venture  before  you,  gentlemen,  with 
the  confident  affirmation  that  this  customary  resort  to  lin- 
guistic lynch-law  is  neither  intelligent  nor  moral  nor  re- 
spectable. 

"A  practical  proposition  is  merely  small  change  of  the  cur- 
rent legal  tender;  while  an  academic  proposition  is  a  first 
mortgage  on  the  property,  and  a  long  time  investment. 

"An  academic  proposition  is  like  government  two's,  or  still 
more  like  a  title  to  growing  timber;  perfectly  good,  but  in  a 
panicky  market  not  always  convertible.  A  practical  proposi- 
tion is  perishable  goods.  It  is  worth  what  it  is  worth,  but  its 
value  can  be  realized  only  through  immediate  consumption, 
or  transformation  into  more  permanent  capital. 

"A  practical  proposition  is  a  stake  driven  at  a  given  spot. 
An  academic  proposition  is  a  survey  of  the  continent. 

"Now  there  is  one  large  academic  view  which  controls,  if 
it  does  not  harmonize  the  confusion  of  variant  views.  This 
comprehensive  academic  view  is  that  we  must  all  consent  at 
last  to  run  our  line  fence  not  solely  with  reference  to  the  stake 
we  have  driven,  but  also  with  due  respect  to  the  general 
survey. 

"Dropping  metaphor,  and  speaking  straight  to  the  point, 
the  one  essential  idea  which  it  is  the  inalienable  duty  of  aca- 
demic life  to  project  into  practical  life,  is  that  we  do  not  put 
the  w^hole  of  our  mind  or  our  conscience  into  our  work  until 
we  are  able  to  fit  that  work  loyally  into  the  whole  range  of  re- 
lations, the  whole  system  of  cause  and  effect,  in  which  it  plays 
a  part. 

"To  explain  fully  what  this  means  would  require  a  com- 
plete treatise  on  the  whole  modern  conception  of  life.  In  a 
word  it  means  this: — No  man's  place  in  life  belongs  to  him 
in  a  sense  that  can  be  covered  by  a  calculus  which  makes  his 

157 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


own  private  interests  the  deoisive  factor.  l*]ach  of  us  deserves 
or  does  not  deserve  his  phiee  and  his  fortune,  whether  it  is 
high  or  low,  much  or  little,  aeeording  to  the  ratio  of  his  con- 
tribution in  that  place  to  the  developing  interests  of  the  en- 
tire human  family. 

"Putting  this  in  terms  of  labor  problems,  for  illustration, 
no  man  is  loyal  to  the  logic  of  life,  who  allows  his  position  in 
a  contlict  between  capital  and  labor  to  be  decided  beyond  ap- 
peal by  the  probable  eti'ects  u])on  himself  or  his  class.  No 
man  has  a  right  to  act  as  though  he  and  his  class  were  privi- 
leged to  be  the  weighers  and  gaugers,  applying  their  own 
standjird  to  the  interests  of  others.  On  the  contran,',  life  is 
the  measure,  and  we  and  our  interests  are  material  to  be 
measured. 

"The  last  ei^timate  we  can  reach  of  the  total  effect  of  alter- 
native courses  of  conduct  upon  all  the  interests  of  present  and 
future  generations,  is  the  rightful  arbiter  of  our  attitude  in  a 
labor  quarrel.  Tt  is  not  this  year's  nor  this  decade's  wages  or 
profits  alone ;  it  is  not  alone  a  possible  modification  of  business 
policies,  or  redistribution  of  managerial  responsibility;  it  is 
not  alone  the  probable  influence  upon  the  permanence  or 
proportions  of  industrial  clas.ses.  It  is  all  of  these  together, 
calculated  to  their  last  discoverable  effects.  The  only  cri- 
terion worthy  of  a  man  of  brains  and  conscience,  is  the  most 
disinterested  judgment  that  can  be  formed  of  the  probable 
influence  of  his  conduct  upon  the  common  human  enterprise 
of  clearing  the  way  for  general  programs  in  material  and  men- 
tal and  moral  well-being. 

"Yes,  gentlemen,  I  am  perfectly  consicious  of  the  magni- 
tude of  my  offense.  In  spit€  of  evers^thing,  I  have  made  com- 
mon caiLse  with  that  despicaljle  and  preposterous  ]oretender, 
the  academic  proposition.  I  have  done  it  deliberately,  and  I 
have  gloried  in  it ! 

"I  remember  that  it  is  more  than  archaic,  in  these  incredu- 
lous days,  to  assume  the  minatory  office  of  the  prophet;  but 
for  good  meas-ure,  to  assure  my  conviction  in  case  there  may 
be  some  loop-hole  for  escape  on  technicalities  from  the  mer- 
ited penalties  of  my  previous  guilt,  I  repeat  and  reaffirm. 
There  will  be  no  secure  industrial  peace  till  the  conflicts  of 
classes  abandon  the  policy  of  settlement  by  clash  of  hostile 
force,  and  substitute  the  arbitrament  of  dispassionate  inquiry 
into  the  conditions  of  human  progress. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


"Every  truth  of  any  consequence  that  we  now  regard  as 
settled,  has  had  to  fight  its  way  up  from  the  des[)ised  and  re- 
jected status  of  an  academic  proposition.  The  human  race 
had  stumbled  through  much  the  larger  part  of  its  elapsed 
time  before  the  nmltiplication  table  was  adopted  into  the  cate- 
gory of  useful  knowledge.  It  was  only  at  a  relatively  recent 
stage  of  growth  that  people  recognized  the  necessity  of  be- 
lieving that  twice  two  are  always  four.  For  a  long  time  be- 
fore they  finally  went  into  jjractical  operation,  Magna  Charta, 
and  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
and  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  were  academic  proposi- 
tions in  the  mouths  of  visionaries  and  fanatics.  Men  but  lit- 
tle past  middle  life  remember  when  antiseptic  surgery  was 
an  academic  proposition  too  ridiculous  to  be  treated  decently 
by  conservative  practitioners.  Today  we  do  not  even  dare  to 
have  ourselves  manicured  or  barbered,  unless  previously  guar- 
anteed that  conformity  with  the  prescriptions  of  chemistry 
and  bacteriology  has  rendered  the  operation  innocuous.  The 
day  will  come,  and  I  do  not  believe  it  is  in  the  remote  dis- 
tance, when  this  academic  view  of  labor  problems  will  be  com- 
mon knowledge.  A  conflict  between  capital  and  labor  is  never 
simply  a  question  of  dollars  and  cents,  or  of  immediate  ways 
and  means,  between  employers  and  employees.  A  conflict 
between  capital  and  labor  is  a  re-examination  of  the  validity 
and  the  virility  of  our  whole  underlying  system  of  thinking ! 

"But  I  have  in  a  way  anticipated  a  later  consideration. 
Microscopic  analysis  of  my  plan  of  arg-ument  would  discover 
that  at  present  these  applications  to  labor  problems  are  merely 
incidental  and  illustrative.  The  substance  of  my  first  point 
may  be  recapitulated  in  a  sentence: — Judged  by  the  stand- 
ards of  civilization,  and  not  of  classes,  business  in  general  to- 
day is  short  of  the  academic  collateral  necessaiy  to  support  its 
circulation !" 

The  men  surrounding  Edgerly  were  not  of  a  type  likely  to 
betray  by  outward  signs  any  conclusive  evidence  of  assent  or 
dissent.  If  they  had  been  bored,  their  manner  would  have 
told  it,  and  Edgerly's  worst  fear  had  been  that  he  might  not 
be  nearly  enough  equal  to  the  occasion  to  hold  attention. 
Approval  or  disapproval  was  a  quite  secondary  matter,  if  in- 
terest enough  could  be  maintained  to  keep  thought  on  the 
subject. 

169 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


So  far,  however,  there  was  no  doubt  about  the  listening; 
and  the  general  a})j)earance  of  settling  into  comfortable  posi- 
tions, and  of  surmise  about  what  was  coming,  assured  Edgerly 
that  he  was  at  least  not  yet  counted  out.  At  the  same  time  the 
quizzical  cxpres-^ion  on  most  of  the  faces  left  him  uncertain 
how  attention  was  divided  between  his  thought  and  his  per- 
fornumce. 

In  the  moment's  pause  before  he  took  up  his  second  point, 
Edgerly  could  not  help  wondering  how  far  he  ought  to  com- 
piu'e  himself  with  the  violinL^t  whose  bravura  execution  ex- 
torts ambiguous  applause,  although  the  semi-assured  artistic 
insight  of  the  audience  suspects  that  an  exhibition  of  tone- 
taming  technique  is  trilling  with  its  demand  for  real  music. 
But  having  whetted  interest,  he  was  prepared  to  rest  his  case 
less  on  the  manner  and  more  on  the  matter.  His  main  pur- 
pose was  not  to  win  credit  for  himself,  but  to  blaze  a  path  for 
the  conclusion  that  other  ideas  are  abroad  in  the  world,  be- 
side those  prevalent  in  business,  about  the  relations  of  busi- 
ness to  life ;  that  these  ideas  are  backed  not  merely  by  the  spirit 
of  selfishness,  but  also  by  the  spirit  of  truthfulness ;  and  that 
the  ideas  are  bound  sooner  or  later  to  win  their  share  of  in- 
fluence upon  the  course  of  social  change.  When  he  resumed, 
his  tone,  if  not  his  choice  of  language,  was  in  striking  con- 
trast with  that  in  which  he  had  begun.  It  was  deliberate  and 
colloquial,  but  it  was  quite  as  carefully  calculated. 

"So  much  for  the  first  point.  The  second  is  like  unto  it. 
Yet  there  are  differences  which  justify  a  doubt  whether  in  this 
connection  the  absence  of  reporters  is  an  unrelieved  disaster; 
not  on  account  of  anything  I  shall  actually  say,  but  because 
the  efflorescence  of  their  poetic  license  might  be  over-stimu- 
lated by  the  associations. 

"The  second  proposition  is  this: — If  there  exists,  in  the 
conservative  index  expiirgatorius  of  things  prohibited,  a  term 
of  reproach  more  irrevocably  foreordained  to  rouse  the  wrath 
and  fiery  indignation  of  the  practical  man  than  that  long 
and  innocently  suffering  adjective  'academic,'  it  is  the  in- 
famous epithet  'socialistic' 

"Before  commenting  on  this  proposition  I  must  claim  the 
privilege  of  my  promised  freedom  of  speech,  for  a  word  of 
per-sonal  explanation.  I  am  not  a  socialist.  I  do  not  believe 
in  socialism.  I  have  no  intention  of  undertaking,  here  or  else- 

160 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


where,  a  defense  of  socialism ;  but  I  am  obliged  to  say,  gen- 
tlemen, that  from  the  point  of  view  which  I  am  representing 
this  evening,  if  there  is  anything  in  the  shape  of  social  men- 
ace less  defensible  than  socialism,  it  is  the  typical  business 
man's  attitude  toward  socialism !  Your  peremptory  ostra- 
cism and  outlawry  of  the  subject  either  impeach  your  good 
will,  or  they  demonstrate  your  woeful  deficiency  of  infor- 
mation. 

"If  the  modern  lords  of  business  could  command  the 
services  of  the  Bourbon  lettres  de  cachet,  metaphorically  at 
any  rate  socialism  would  forthwith  be  immured  in  the  deep- 
est dungeons  of  the  Bastille,  to  be  released  only  by  the  Revo- 
lution !  If  your  capitalistic  class-prejudice  can  once  force 
upon  a  proposition  the  convicts'  garb  of  that  attainting  at- 
tributive 'socialistic,'  you  go  on  your  way  rejoicing  that  there 
is  not  enough  left  in  favor  of  the  idea  to  warrant  a  hearing 
by  the  Board  of  Pardons !" 

Under  other  circumstances,  in  spite  of  the  bespoken  free- 
dom of  speech,  the  Patriarchs  would  have  set  down  this  plain 
language  as  an  abuse  of  liberty.  They  Avould  have  denied 
that  they  objected  to  calling  a  spade  a  spade,  but  their  posi- 
tion was  that  it  turns  liberty  into  license  to  denounce  an  hon- 
est spade  as  an  instrument  of  oppression.  Edgerly's  relation 
to  David  Lyon  however,  made  him  in  a  sense  one  of  them- 
selves, and  although  he  had  at  a  stroke  put  himself  under 
suspicion,  his  eccentricity  could  be  considered  by  the  Patri- 
archs with  less  heat  than  if  it  had  been  wholly  an  attack 
from  without.  Edgerly's  strategy  was  to  do  just  enough  jolly- 
ing to  insure  attention,  with  realism  enough  in  his  allusions 
to  facts  to  show  that  the  nonsense  also  carried  a  literal  argu- 
ment. After  a  pause  to  allow  the  indictment  to  take  effect, 
he  returned  to  his  text,  with  no  sign  that  he  was  aware  of 
having  transgressed  the  commonplace. 

"Judged  from  the  academic  standpoint,  the  behavior  of 
the  typical  business  man  toward  socialism  is  on  a  level  with 
the  child's  fear  of  the  dark,  or  the  hysterics  of  the  farmer's 
horse  at  meeting  an  automobile.  The  horse  indeed  has  the 
better  excuse.  The  auto  is  a  real  menace,  while  socialism  is 
a  bogy. 

161 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


''It  is  absurd,  in  the  first  place,  to  shy  at  the  word  socialism, 
beouiiso  it  means  so  many  thin,ti>;  that  it  means  nothing. 

''If  you  should  ])ut  all  the  current  definitions  of  socialism 
into  a  hat — hy  the  way,  to  hold  them  it  would  have  to  be  big 
enough  to  fit  the  8|»hinx — and  draw  out  a  dozen,  the  chances 
are  that  they  would  be  as  irreconcilable  with  one  another  as  a 
like  munber  of  definitions  of  orthodoxy,  selected  by  the  same 
method.  The  world  is  girdled  by  an  alternating  current  of 
conflicting  ortliodoxies,  from  the  Mikado's  priests  of  Shinto 
to  the  apostles  of  Brigham  Young.  You  have  an  orthodoxy 
or  a  socialism  wherever  you  have  a  defender  of  any  faith  who 
cares  to  use  either  name.  The  consequence  is  that  when  you 
have  said  'orthodoxy'  or  'socialism'  you  have  merely  applied 
a  general  name  to  a  heterogeneous  diversity  of  things  which 
can  no  more  be  disposed  of  in  one  wholesale  judgment, 
than  you  can  treat  all  corporations  as  uniformly  good  or  bad, 
or  all  laws  us  equally  wise  or  foolish. 

"For  his  philanthropic  efforts  at  the  town  which  bears  his 
name,  Mr.  Pullman  would  have  been  entirely  within  his 
rights  if  he  had  called  himself  a  socialist;  and  he  could  have 
made  out  a  nuich  stronger  claim  to  justify  his  appropriation 
of  the  term  than  many  species  of  everything  and  nothingists 
who  apply  it  to  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a 
socialism  which  in  its  practical  effects  is  in  no  way  distin- 
guishable from  anarchism.  By  your  treatment  of  the  word 
'socialism'  therefore,  you  damn  with  a  common  label  a  vast 
variety  of  ideas  and  efforts  between  these  wide  extremes,  some 
of  them  more  good  than  bad,  some  more  bad  than  good,  but  all 
containing  a  residuum  of  saving  grace.  And  you  are  uncon- 
scious of  anything  wrong,  until  you  consent  to  take  a  look  at 
the  anomaly  from  the  academic  point  of  view!  Although 
there  are  orthodoxies  and  socialisms  that  outrage  all  reason, 
it  is  pitiable  logic,  and  still  more  pestilential  policy,  to  taboo 
all  religious  and  social  inquiry  not  mortgaged  in  advance  to 
our  own  conclusions." 

The  knitted  brows,  and  the  alert  watch  which  his  hearers 
were  keeping  on  him,  .showed  Edgerly  that  they  at  least 
thought  he  was  worth  notice.  He  had  deliberately  used  up 
the  bulk  of  his  time  guarding  his  approach,  in  the  hope  that 
the  way  would  be  open  for  a  single  sharp  attack.  It  was  now 
a  question  of  making  the  most  of  the  time  that  remained  to 

162 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


deliver  his  real  message.  He  made  another  change  to  a  di- 
rect, staccato  manner,  which  said  even  more  plainly  than  his 
words,  ''So  much  for  side  issues,  now  to  the  point." 

"But,  after  all,  these  two  propositions  were  merely  to  muz- 
zle inconvenient  watch  dogs  at  the  gate,  before  I  could  enter 
your  premises  on  my  main  errand.  The  really  important  out- 
look upon  labor  problems,  from  an  academic  point  of  view, 
is  indicated  in  my  third  proposition,  namely: — 

"It  is  the  presumption  of  business  that  its  duty  is  done 
when  it  has  played  the  doHar  game  for  all  it  is  worth.  On 
the  contrary  it  is  the  business  of  business  to  help  mark  the 
limits  where  the  game  ceases  to  be  w^orth  the  candle,  and  to 
discover  how  so  much  of  the  game  as  is  worth  playing  may  be 
improved  in  the  intere.'^t  of  general  welfare. 

"Everything  that  I  have  said  so  far  would  be  equally  in 
order,  with  slight  changes  of  details,  if  I  were  talking  to  an 
audience  of  labor  leaders.  The  present  proposition  also  has 
its  applications  to  the  labor  side  of  the  problem ;  but  it  would 
be  a  waste  of  time  to  devote  any  attention  in  this  presence  to 
that  aspect  of  the  case.  You  surely  need  no  help  from  me  in 
detecting  the  sins  of  organized  labor.  I  am  not  now  con- 
cerned with  motes  in  the  eyes  of  the  absent,  but  wdth  beams 
in  the  party  vision  represented  by  the  present  company. 

"If  I  were  asked  to  pass  judgment  upon  the  merits  of  the 
particular  issue  that  embarrasses  Chicago  today,  and  to  de- 
clare an  opinion  about  the  respective  duties  of  the  contending 
forces,  I  should  most  emphatically  decline.  A  third  party 
could  properly  pass  upon  the  specific  questions  involved  only 
after  full  presentation  of  the  case  by  both  contestants  had 
furnished  the  means  for  a  judicial  decision.  In  what  I  am 
saying  I  am  in  no  sense  prejudging  the  balance  of  right  and 
wrong  between  capital  and  labor  in  the  present  instance.  I 
am  exhibiting  certain  universal  features  of  labor  problems,  as 
they  appear  from  an  academic  point  of  view.  The  question 
arises  at  your  post  of  duty,  not  at  mine.  What  consideration 
do  these  general  factors  deserve  in  the  pending  conflict? 

"Viewed  then  not  merely  in  the  perspective  of  the  day's 
w^ork,  nor  as  measured  by  the  interests  of  a  given  investment, 
but  as  an  incident  of  the  universal  conflict  of  class-interests, 
every  labor  problem  is  a  test  of  the  strength  of  the  presump- 
tion that  human  institutions  are  subject  to  change. 

163 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MO  RALIST 


"It  is  not  invariably  Iriie,  but  with  certain  exceptions  cap- 
ital today  stoutly  maintains  the  negative  of  that  i)rcsuni{)tion. 
The  excci>tions  arc  partly  accidental,  partly  si)ecial  cases  of 
aggressiveness,  and  partly  exceptions  only  on  the  surface. 

''The  sullenness  and  the  stubbornness  of  labor  conflicts 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  the  value  of  the  prizes  immedi- 
ately at  stake.  These  are  usually  mere  trifles  in  themselves. 
The  real  issue  is  the  ultimate  shifting  of  the  balance  of  power, 
in  case  ground  should  be  gained  in  the  direction  of  more  in- 
fluence by  the  labor  factor. 

"Capital  does  not  usually  care  a  rap  about  a  mere  matter  of 
a  few  cents  more  in  the  pay  envelope,  or  a  few  minutes  less 
iu  the  working  week.  If  laborers  would  accept  such  conces- 
sions as  acts  of  grace  by  employers,  and  therewith  an  end  of 
it,  these  sops  could  often  be  tossed  to  employees  and  expensive 
struggles  avoided. 

''The  persistence  of  labor  and  the  resistance  of  capital  are 
for  far  deeper  reasons.  Whether  intelligently  or  instinctively, 
each  side  is  aware  that  something  much  more  important  is  in 
the  balance,  namely,  gain  or  loss  of  right  to  share  in  the  con- 
trol of  the  capital,  and  in  distributing  its  profits. 

''The  instinct  of  emploj'ees  is  to  distribute,  and  of  employ- 
ers to  centralize  the  control  of  capital ;  and  there  -will  always 
be  labor  problems  until  a  permanent  balance  of  these  tw'O 
forces  is  established. 

"The  trouble  which  I  took  at  the  outset  to  challenge  the 
letters  of  marque  and  reprisal  under  which  you  are  accus- 
tomed to  use  tho.se  sharp-edged  weapons,  'academic'  and  'so- 
cialistic,' was  entirely  a  precautionary  measure  with  reference 
to  the  present  point.  All  the  different  species  of  social  move- 
ments, from  the  most  inoffensive  to  the  most  dangerous,  which 
you  attempt  to  put  out  of  commission  by  force  of  that  oppro- 
brious epithet  'socialistic,'  have  one  characteristic  in  com- 
mon. Their  fundamental  position  is  directly  contrary  to 
that  of  capitalism.  They  frankly  maintain  the  affirmative 
of  the  presumption  that  human  institutions  are  subject  to 
change. 

"You  justify  the  traditions  of  your  class  by  pointing  to  the 
foolishness  of  many  of  the  changes  proposed.  But  until  wis- 
dom and  skill  have  been  gained  by  honest  experiment  with 
the  conditions  to  be  controlled,  stupidity  is  the  common  lot 
of  mankind. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


''Whatever  may  be  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  particular 
issues  involved  in  a  given  case,  either  party  to  a  labor  con- 
flict puts  itself  in  the  wrong,  if  its  position  virtually  antago- 
nizes the  principle  of  social  change.  Readjustment  of  social 
conditions  is  not  violence  of  life,  l)ut  the  law  of  life. 

''Progress  is  the  net  outcome  of  life  simply  ])ecause  the  in- 
ertia of  vested  interests  cannot  resist  the  momentum  of  hu- 
man destiny.  My  argument  is  that  it  is  the  business  of  bus- 
iness men  not  simply  to  hold  things  as  they  are,  but  to  be 
leaders  in  adapting  social  institutions  to  changing  conditions. 

"To  give  my  third  pro])osition  its  full  force,  I  must  ask  you 
to  consider  it  a  moment  from  another  angle.  Every  labor 
problem  runs  back  not  only  to  the  question.  Is  there  any  thing 
new  to  do  about  social  organization?  but  to  the  still  more  rad- 
ical question.  Is  there  any  thing  new  to  think  about  our  in- 
herited institutions? 

"Here  too,  as  a  rule,  we  find  capital  defending  the  negative, 
and  labor  contending  for  the  affirmative.  The  visible  possi- 
bilities of  new  thought  range  from  plaintive  pleas  for  transla- 
tion of  the  primary  rules  of  homely  honesty  into  the  practices 
of  business,  to  philosophies  that  in  a  generation  or  two  would 
turn  the  world  back  to  savagery.  This  is  the  peculiar  oppor- 
tunity for  the  other  of  the  two  weapons  of  extermination  to 
which  I  have  referred.  Business  intolerance  jumbles  these 
miscellaneous  propositions  under  indiscriminate  suspicion, 
invokes  its  own  peculiar  'law  of  reinforced  defense,'  and  de- 
crees their  banishment  to  the  hopeless  region  'academic' 

"But  frankly,  gentlemen,  there  has  never  been  an  age  of 
the  world  w^hose  prepossessions  have  not  been  revised  by  its 
successors.  There  is  not  the  faintest  probability  that  our  era 
will  be  an  exception  to  the  rule.  On  the  contrary,  the  change 
from  the  tallow  dips  and  fluid  lamps  of  half  a  century  ago, 
to  interior  and  exterior  electric  illumination,  is  but  a  feeble 
analogy  for  the  intellectual  light  that  has  been  shed,  mean- 
while, upon  every  subject  of  human  knowledge.  The  aspect 
of  the  world  and  all  it  contains  is  presenting  more  rapid  and 
radical  transformations  to  our  minds  than  to  any  previous 
generation.  The  man  or  the  class  that  pins  faith  upon  petri- 
fying society  in  its  present  forms,  is  due  for  as  impotent  a 
bout  with  fate  as  though  he  staked  his  hopes  on  keeping  the 
face  of  nature  as  it  is  in  January  unchanged  through  the 
month  of  June. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


''Nor  are  wo  at  a  loss  for  indications  of  some  of  the  changes 
innnodiatoly  to  c-onie — inilcetl  the  niodilications  have  ah'cady 
^one  so  hw  in  men's  thoughts  that  we  could  hardly  be  over- 
taken by  surprise  at  any  speed  of  transnuiting  them  into 
action. 

"To  cite  a  single  instance,  closely  related  to  our  subject: 
The  world  is  rapidly  rediscovering  its  suyieriority  to  its  wealth. 
For  three  hundred  years  we  have  been  forgetting  that  wealth 
is  for  the  sake  of  life,  and  falling  under  the  illusion  that  life 
is  for  the  sake  of  wealth.  \A'c  have  created  artificial  legal 
persons  incorporating  the  abstract  principle  of  accumulation. 
These  artificial  persons  inevitably  assert  their  supremacy  not 
only  over  their  servants  but  over  their  masters.  They  become 
ends  in  themselves,  to  which  all  men  must  be  tributary.  The 
fight  of  labor  against  capital  in  corporate  forms  appears  to 
be  a  fight  of  one  group  of  men  against  another.  In  its  deeper 
reaches  it  turns  out  to  be  a  fight  of  laboring  men  for  manhood 
in  general,  against  the  devouring  power  of  capital. 

"When  capital  is  made  into  a  legal  person,  the  only  possible 
attitudes  of  natural  persons  toward  it  are  for  and  against. 
There  can  be  but  one  crime  against  capital ;  namely,  conduct 
tending  to  diminish  its  quantity  or  its  value. 

"Behind  all  petty  or  important  incidents  of  labor  conflicts, 
therefore,  is  the  antecedent  que.stion  of  choice  between  ruling 
conceptions  of  life.  The  present  social  situation  confronts 
men  of  thought  with  the  moral  dilemma: — 'Choose  ye  this 
day  whom  you  w^ill  serve.  Shall  it  be  men  or  capital  ?'  One 
of  these  aims  must  slave  to  the  other.  They  are  not,  and 
never  can  be  coordinate,  because  the  one  is  personal,  the 
other  impersonal.  The  strategic  point  in  the  Avhole  social 
struggle  is  at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  the  one  leading  to  more 
capitalization,  the  other  to  more  humanization,  as  the  termi- 
nal of  social  effort.  Expressed  more  literally,  the  key  to  the 
social  struggle,  in  its  present  stage,  is  the  question : — Shall 
the  social  aim  be  to  use  men  for  the  sake  of  capital,  or  to  use 
capital  for  the  sake  of  men? 

"I  am  not  impugning  motives.  I  am  not  making  a  parti- 
san plea.  I  am  not  catering  to  the  popular  demand  for  sen- 
sations. Under  present  conditions  especially,  and  even  under 
ordinary  circumstances.  I  should  not  feel  at  liberty  to  say  in 
public  precisely  what  I  am  saying  here.  As  a  privileged 
communication,  however,  I  am  confiding  to  you  one  of  the 

166 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    MORALIST 


aspects  which  our  social  problems  present  from  an  academic 
point  of  view.  In  spite  of  the  apparent  egotism  of  the  claim, 
I  venture  to  add  that  our  society  does  not  at  present  afford  a 
standpoint  more  favorable  than  the  university  outlook  to  just 
and  penetrating  judgments  of  social  tendencies. 

"In  a  word  then,  gentlemen,  my  message  to  you,  as  wield- 
ers  of  power  in  business,  is  that  you  have  not  well  read  the 
signs  of  the  times  which  indicate  the  function  by  which  you 
might  best  serve  your  fellow  men.  In  a  world  whose  law  is 
change,  and  in  an  era  in  which  the  operation  of  the  law  is 
gaining  accelerated  motion,  there  is  peculiar  demand  for  your 
friendly  cooperation  with  the  principle  of  progress. 

"Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  world  is  every  hour  generat- 
ing a  higher  pressure  of  ambition  to  architect  its  own  fortune. 
So  far  as  we  can  see,  the  era  that  we  are  entering  is  to  be  dis- 
tinguished by  the  dominance  of  a  distinctly  modern  temper 
toward  human  conditions.  It  is  to  be  an  era  of  determina- 
tion not  to  be  content  with  such  improvement  as  accident 
may  bring,  but  to  create  improvement  by  inventing  means  to 
satisfy  social  demands.  You  may  antagonize  this  tendency, 
but  it  will  surely  triumph  over  you.  It  has  the  strongest  im- 
pulses of  humanity  behind  it,  and  they  cannot  be  perma- 
nently arrested  by  the  interests  of  a  cla.ss.  If  you  will  work 
with  the  social  movement,  you  may  do  more  than  any  other 
fraction  of  society  to  insure  a  maximum  of  wisdom  and  a 
minimum  of  foolishness  in  future  programs  of  improvement. 

"The  type  of  men  endowed  with  the  most  splendid  talents 
for  bringing  things  to  pass  must  sooner  or  later  discover  that 
the  largest  scope  for  their  powers  cannot  be  found  in  the  para- 
mount service  of  capital ;  there  is  a  wider  radius  of  action  in 
higher  loyalty  to  the  general  weal. 

"The  manhood  suffrage  of  this  new  era  of  social  adapta- 
tion will  be  universal  freedom  of  investigation. 

"No  dominant  interest  has  ever  permitted  investigation 
which  quastioned  the  rightfulness  of  its  domination. 

"Vested  interest  is  vested  prejudice;  but  where  prejudice 
is  law  truth  is  an  outlaw, 

"Whatever  the  immediate  issues  of  labor  problems,  they 
are  incidents  in  the  process  of  repealing  the  common  law  of 
the  passing  era,  that  it  is  treason  to  society  to  question  the  jus- 
tice of  the  constitution  and  by-laws  of  capitalism. 

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FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    MORALIST 


"111  the  lU'w  era  it  will  1)0  coninion  law  that  no  interest  may 
ostap  investioiation  of  anythinL::  that  is  affoctod  by  a  ])ublic 
interest.  In  the  new  ei-a  it  will  he  eonunon  law  that  the  whole 
foree  of  society  shall  guarantee  investination  of  every  condi- 
tion wliich  ohstruets  genenil  j)ro,t2;re.ss. 

"The  day  on  which  the  leaders  of  business  unite  with  the 
leadei*s  of  labor  to  promote  the  incorporation  of  these  two 
principles  into  the  fundamental  law,  with  i)ledges  to  abide  by 
the  result*!,  will  mark  also  the  final  end  of  industrial  wars. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   PILLARS  OF   SOCIETY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


XI 

THE   PILLARS   OF   SOCIETY 

'Everything  that  the  gentleman  said  about  capital  would 
have  been  equally  true  in  itself  and  equally  irrelevant  to 
the  question  at  issue,  if  it  had  been  alleged  of  the  atmos- 
phere and  the  sunlight,  instead  of  capital." 


THE  slang  dictionary  has  no  phrase  for  the  effect  of  Ed- 
gerly's  talk  upon  the  Patriarchs,  unless  we  summon  the 
aid  of  mixed  metaphor  and  call  it  a  heated  frost. 

If  Goliath  had  been  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  that 
changed  pebbles  to  soap-bubbles  before  they  hit,  the  shep- 
herd boy  would  probably  not  have  cut  much  of  a  figure  in 
subsequent  history. 

While  a  pelting  with  vapor  pills  may  not  jeopardize  life, 
liberty  nor  estate,  it  tends  to  compromise  the  dignity  and  agi- 
tate the  sensibilities  of  the  victim. 

Even  an  experienced  literary  critic  would  have  been  puzzled 
if  called  upon  to  sort  out  and  apportion  the  different  ele- 
ments of  Edgerly's  talk,  from  peniiissible  to  proscribed 
sarcasm,  from  solid  argument  to  excursions  of  fancy,  and 
from  innocent  matter-of-fact  to  offensive  insinuation.  The 
Patriarchs  were  not  prepared  for  such  classification.  It  was 
a  question  of  total  impression.  If  their  composite  reaction 
had  reported  itself  in  the  most  guarded  form,  the  terms  would 
have  been  ''ill-judged"  and  ''inappropriate."  An  unedited 
version  of  the  feelings  of  the  majority  would  have  declared 
that  the  speech  as  a  whole  was  an  exhibition  of  idiotic  con- 
ceit, and  a  gratuitous  insult  to  the  Club. 

Responsibility  for  the  decencies  of  the  occasion  fell  rather 
heavily  upon  the  guests.  However  their  opinions  may  have 
been  divided,  they  felt  indebted  to  their  hosts  for  a  unique 
entertainment,  and  when  Edgerly  was  done  they  furnished 
applause  enough  partially  to  cover  his  retreat. 

It  was  an  awkward  moment  for  the  President.  He  had 
never  faced  a  more  delicate  situation.  He  had  to  guard  the 
proprieties  toward  the  guest,  and  yet  he  must  represent  the 
dignity  of  the  organization.  He  even  feared  that  his  effort 
to  preserve  the  balance  might  move  some  irascible  member 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


to  iiuiko  a  soono.  If  he  had  not  been  in  the  ehair,  he  would 
himself  have  been  disposed  to  break  a  lance  with  Ed^erly,  and 
he  had  no  doubt  that  others  niif2;ht  be  more  accurately  de- 
scribed as  ready  to  break  the  offender  with  a  lance.  The 
faint  demonstration  as  l*]dgerly  finished  left  the  chairman 
little  time  to  adjust  his  retlections,  and  he  rose  without  feel- 
iuL!;  quite  sure  what  he  was  ^oing  to  say.  lie  began  in  the 
manner  of  a  man  testing  thin  ice: — 

"As  tlie  chief  guest  of  the  evening  intimated,  at  the  open- 
ing of  his  remarks,  he  gave  our  committee  fair  warning  that 
what  he  was  likely  to  say  would  tax  the  tolerance  of  the  Club. 
As  to  the  occasion  for  this  warning,  I  take  it  that  no  one  is 
inclined  to  accuse  liim  of  not  making  good.  While  the  opin- 
ions which  the  s])eaker  has  expressed  are  not  altogether  unfa- 
miliar, it  could  not  be  expected  that  men  who  are  acquainted 
with  the  world  should  find  themselves  able  to  regard  them  a.s 
conclusive  or  even  plausible.  Indeed,  we  cannot  offer  higher 
praise  than  by  expressing  our  regret  that  the  admirable  skill 
which  the  speaker  has  exhibited  in  advocating  untenable  be- 
liefs is  not  enlisted  in  the  service  of  a  better  cause.  While  I 
am  sure  that  the  members  of  the  Club  are  not  convinced  by 
the  eloquence  to  which  they  have  listened,  it  is  possible  that 
they  are  temporarily  silenced.  I  wait  your  plea.sure  there- 
fore, gentlemen,  with  reference  to  further  discussion." 

Mr.  Dexter  was  on  his  feet  instantly,  and  although  the 
chairman  Avas  doubtful  whether  Dexter  could  keep  his  tem- 
per, he  was  glad  to  yield  the  floor,  and  to  enjoy  a  reprieve 
from  responsibility. 

Both  in  business  and  in  politics.  Dexter  had  an  honorably 
earned  national  reputation.  Nobody  rated  him  as  a  broad 
man,  but  he  was  fiercely  dogmatic  in  all  his  opinions.  He 
was  known  by  his  more  intimate  acquaintances  as  careful 
rather  than  safe.  His  views  were  so  restricted  that  his  judg- 
ment was  never  reliable  except  within  the  range  of  well  estab- 
lished precedent.  In  another  age  he  might  have  been  a  martyr 
to  any  cause  that  he  espoused.  His  loyalty  to  his  principles 
was  beyond  susi)icion,  but  the  sources  of  his  convictions  were 
so  confined  that  he  often  w-eakened  his  own  side  of  a  con- 
troversy more  by  furnishing  grounds  for  the  charge  of  fanat- 
icism, than  he  could  injure  the  other  side  by  the  strength  of 
his  attacks. 

174 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


If  Edgerly  had  been  in  collusion  with  fate  to  furnish  point 
to  his  argument,  he  could  not  have  been  better  served  than 
by  the  presence  of  Dexter.  The  same  provocation  would  not 
have  worried  any  other  man  present  into  betraying  ocular 
proof  of  the  partiality  of  the  capitalistic  point  of  view. 

The  Patriarchs  were  by  no  means  exceptionally  narrow 
men.  On  the  contrary,  in  comparison  with  the  average  of 
their  fellow  citizens  they  were  eminent  for  intelligence  and 
catholicity.  They  were  simply  cases  under  the  universal  law 
that  all  men  are  aifected  by  the  bias  of  their  peculiar  interests. 
Edgerly's  whole  argument  might  have  been  compressed  into 
the  theorem  that  the  bias  of  the  capitalistic  interest  needs 
watching  more  than  any  other  single  factor  in  present  social 
problems. 

If  all  the  members  of  the  Club  except  Dexter  had  spoken 
in  their  usual  manner  when  addressing  the  public,  the  total 
effect  would  have  gone  far  toward  shifting  the  burden  of  proof 
back  upon  Edgerly.  Their  tone  would  have  been  so  calm, 
their  form  of  statement  so  fair,  their  references  to  the  higher 
motives  of  life  so  sympathetic,  that  it  would  have  seemed  like 
malicious  aspersion  to  suspect  them  of  undue  influence  by 
anti-social  interests.  Edgerly  had  implied  no  lack  of  respect 
for  the  good  intentions  and  high  character  of  the  typical 
business  man.  His  argument  had  dealt  with  the  compelling 
power  of  capitalistic  standards.  He  had  pointed  out  that  capi- 
tal must  either  connnand  or  obey,  and  he  had  claimed  that 
wealth,  not  manhood  is  the  dominant  interest  in  our  present 
social  system. 

It  was  at  once  evident  that  Dexter  was  having  difficulty  in 
controlling  his  emotions.  His  face  was  tense.  His  eyes  had 
the  far-away  look  of  a  man  in  a  trance.  At  first  his  breath 
was  caught  in  hasty  gulps.  His  voice  was  husky,  or  rather 
sibilant.  His  arms  were  busy  with  clutching,  swinging, 
pushing  motions,  wdiich  had  no  meaning  as  gestures,  but 
were  merely  involuntary  means  of  discharging  inconvenient 
nervous  force.  After  the  first  few  sentences  his  pitch  trans- 
posed itself  into  a  piercing  falsetto,  and  then  his  gestures  be- 
came the  beating  and  slashing  sort  that  naturally  accompany 
violent  emotion. 

'*I  regret  extremely,"  he  began,  "that  there  is  any  necessity 
for  replying  to  the  speaker  of  the  evening.  The  circum- 
stances under  which  he  came  entitle  him  to  our  considera- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


tion.  If  he  had  failed  to  give  forcible  expression  to  his  ideas, 
it  would  have  been  our  duty  io  overlook  his  weakness,  in  view 
of  the  brief  time  at  his  disposal  to  collect  his  thouj^hts.  I 
need  not  say  that  there  has  been  no  occasion  for  sympathy  on 
that  score.  Karely  has  a  si)eaker  before  this  club  seemed  so 
able  to  say  precisely  what  he  meant. 

"If  the  address  to  which  we  have  listened  had  been  con- 
fused, and  if  the  doubtful  views  were  merely  im})lied  in  refer- 
ences that  might  have  been  misunderstood,  it  would  be  the 
dictate  of  courtesy  to  ignore  them.  Nothing  of  this  sort  is 
the  case.  The  opinions  to  which  we  have  listened  were  not 
incidental.  They  were  the  substance  of  the  argument.  Nor 
could  they  have  been  improvised  for  the  occasion.  They  were 
evidently  premeditated  and  deliberate. 

"Since  this  is  the  situation,  there  can  be  no  impropriety  in 
using  the  same  freedom  of  speech  which  the  gentleman  re- 
served for  himself.  He  has  told  us  that  business  men  have 
no  use  for  academic  ideas.  Even  after  the  sample  of  academic 
ideas  which  he  htis  presented  to  our  astonished  gaze,  I  pre- 
sume he  will  wonder  that  we  are  of  the  same  opinion  still. 
He  has  ridiculed  business  men  for  not  wasting  their  time  on 
people  who  think  they  are  serving  the  real  world  by  telling 
w^hat  a  glorious  world  it  would  be  if  wishes  were  horses,  and 
if  pretty  sentiments  were  food,  clothing,  shelter  and  pin 
money.  And  yet  I  suppose  he  would  think  it  very  imperti- 
nent if  we  should  ask  him  why  academic  men  refuse  to  listen 
to  inventors  of  perpetual  motion,  and  people  who  demonstrate 
that  the  world  is  not  round  after  all,  and  mind  readers,  and 
fortune  tellers,  and  fakirs  in  general. 

''He  has  intimated  that  capital  is  the  most  suspicious  char- 
acter outside  the  rogues'  gallery.  Capital  has  fed  him  all  bis 
life,  capital  has  given  him  his  education,  capital  keeps  him, 
just  as  it  directly  or  indirectly  furnishes  the  support  of  every 
other  man  in  the  world,  and  now  it  is  the  final  deliverance  of 
academic  wisdom  that  it  is  time  for  humanity  to  turn  and 
smite  its  best  friend ! 

"Since  the  same  penetrating  perception  that  has  given  us 
this  inspiring  discovery  has  issued  an  injunction  against  tak- 
ing the  name  '.socialism'  in  vain,  because  it  doesn't  mean  any- 
thing in  particular,  I  will  confine  myself  to  language  which 
we  shall  all  understand.  Whether  it  is  the  brute  violence  of 
the  Chicago  thug,  who  kills  for  gold,  or  the  mystical  blood- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


thirst  of  the  Russian  terrorist,  who  murders  to  shame  the 
de\'il,  or  the  pedantic  egotism  of  the  academic  theorist,  whose 
artful  phraseology  undermines  respect  for  the  fundamental 
institutions  of  society  in  order  to  advertise  the  superior  qual- 
ity of  his  own  intelligence,  in  each  case  alike  this  wanton, 
stupid,  wicked  assault  upon  social  order  is  nothing  polite  nor 
tolerable  that  can  be  imagined.  It  is  simply  and  solely  despic- 
able and  damnable  anarchy! 

"There  is  always  an  explanation,  if  not  an  excuse,  for  the 
brute  wdio  commits  a  crime  of  violence.  He  is  merely  an 
animal,  with  none  of  the  restraint  of  reason.  But  when  the 
high  priests  of  reason  itself,  the  men  who  pose  as  arbiters  of 
logical  science  and  sanity,  the  men  who  are  constantly  rebuk- 
ing all  the  rest  of  the  world  for  not  taking  lessons  of  them  in 
thoroughness  of  investigation,  and  fairness  of  judgment,  and 
caution  of  utterance — when  these  men  join  forces  with  the 
outbreaking  enemies  of  society  in  propagating  the  most  in- 
sidious incitement  to  destruction  of  the  whole  fabric  of  social 
order,  then  excuses  vanish,  and  imagination  exhausts  itself 
in  search  for  palliation,  and  language  refuses  to  lend  relief! 

"For  our  own  sake  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  notice  the 
fantastical  and  fatuous  doctrines  on  which  the  changes  have 
been  rung  in  our  ears  this  evening.  They  can  do  us  no  more 
hurt  than  scratching  parlor  matclia<*  on  the  sides  of  our  battle- 
ships. But  these  idea*  are  scattered  broadcast  among  people 
who  do  not  know  how  to  protect  themselves  from  the  evils 
they  produce.  These  pernicious  parodies  of  truth  are  making- 
honest  labor  irksome ;  they  are  chasing  contentment  from  the 
homes  of  prosperity;  they  are  breeding  vipers  of  class  jeal- 
ousy ;  they  are  teaching  men  that  agitators  and  revolutionists 
and  destroyers  are  the  only  good  citizens. 

"We  have  been  silent  too  long.  Business  men  must  enlist 
as  crusaders  to  counteract  the  propaganda  of  confusion  which 
ordinary  criminals  and  extraordinary  academic  perverts  are 
conspiring  together  to  spread.  We  owe  so  much  at  least  to 
our  patriotism,  our  morality  and  our  religion ! 

"Where,  outside  of  the  ravings  of  maniacs,  do  these  accus- 
ers of  business  men  find  any  presumptive  grounds  for  their 
calumnies?  What  is  this  capital,  which  we  have  been  informed 
this  evening  is  the  most  dangerous  factor  in  society?  In  the 
face  of  such  detraction,  shall  we  who  know  what  capital  is, 
and  what  inestimable  services  it  renders  to  mankind — shall 

177 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


we  be  silent,  and  allow  these  poisonous  falsifications  to  cir- 
culate without  protest?  If  the  men  who  claim  to  be  the 
guardians  of  truth,  and  the  umpires  of  fairness,  syistemat- 
icidly  malign  Ui?,  if  they  will  not  tell  the  people  what  they 
owe  to  us  for  making  human  comfort  and  happiness  i)0ssible, 
then,  not  in  the  s^pirit  of  boasting,  but  in  all  sincerity  and 
humility,  we  nmst  instruct  the  people  about  the  indispensa- 
ble part  which  we  perform  in  making  the  conditions  and  in 
maintaining  the  processes  that  are  necessary  to  human  well- 
being  and  progress  I 

"What  then  is  the  plain  truth  about  capital?  The  falsifi- 
cations which  the  tortuous  imagination  of  these  mischief- 
mongers  ha;s  foisted  upon  the  facts  make  people  in  general 
blink,  and  squint,  and  grow  watery-eyed  before  they  can  bear 
the  clear  light  of  the  truth.  Capital  is  the  beneficent  fostering 
mother  of  all  desirable  human  effort.  Capital  feeds  the 
farmer  while  he  is  extracting  from  the  soil  food  to  insure  the 
next  campaign  of  human  advancement.  Capital  supports 
every  other  wrestler  with  nature  for  new  supplies  of  raw  ma- 
terial for  the  myriad  uses  of  mankind.  Capital  is  the  patient 
beast  of  burden,  bearing  nature's  treasures  to  and  fro,  first 
to  the  points  where  other  capital  carries  on  human  industry, 
in  its  labor  of  transformation,  and  then  to  other  points  where 
human  needs  are  eager  to  satisfy  themselvas  by  consuming 
these  products.  Capital  builds  houses  and  cities,  and  subdues 
wildernesses,  and  explores  the  remote  regions  of  the  earth. 
Capital  sends  the  messengers  of  commerce  that  unite  widely 
separated  peoples  in  the  mutually  beneficial  bonds  of  trade. 
Capital  girdles  the  earth  with  means  of  communication,  and 
makes  the  sea  and  sky  a  continuous  sounding  board,  to  serve 
for  instant  exchange  of  news  between  the  remotest  men.  Cap- 
ital organizes  our  systems  of  maintaining  order,  of  pr&«erving 
peace,  of  guaranteeing  individual  rights.  Capital  is  the  con- 
servator of  the  arts,  the  promoter  of  science,  the  sustainer  of 
religion.  Capital  provides  means  for  the  ordinary  man  to 
earn  his  livelihood,  and  opens  avenues  for  the  careers  of 
genius.  Yes,  I  am  compelled  to  say,  capital  is  so  unstinted 
in  her  benefactions  that  she  even  endows  the  contemptible 
ingrates  who  convert  her  bounty  into  a  corruption  fund,  to 
mislead  and  betray  their  fellow-men ! 

"It  will  doubtless  always  be  necessary  for  us  to  maintain 
hospitals,  to  alleviate  the  ills  to  which  flesh  is  heir.   We  may 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


never  outgrow  the  necessity  for  asylums,  for  ministration  to 
feeble  minds.  Among  the  burdens  of  the  weak,  which  the 
strong  may  never  escape  the  duty  of  helping  to  bear,  we  may 
cheerfully  assume  the  obligation  of  patience  and  kindly  tol- 
eration toward  unavoidable  ignorance.  But,  in  the  name  of 
all  the  gods  at  once,  it  is  our  duty  to  unmask  the  treachery 
and  the  ignominy  of  those  blind  leaders  of  the  blind  who  are 
the  pampered  agents  of  society  to  conduct  gymnasiums  for 
mental  strength,  and  to  guard  the  search  lights  of  human 
understanding,  but  who  prostitute  their  office  and  their  op- 
portunity, who  spread  the  contagion  of  depravity  and  law- 
lessness, who  deny  the  truths  and  defy  the  obligations  of 
civilized  society !  Free  thought  is  one  thing.  Cultivated  im- 
becility is  quite  another  thing.  This  incident  ought  to  con- 
vince us  that  we  have  reached  the  boundary  line  where  pa- 
tience ceases  to  be  a  virtue.  There  is  no  inheriting  the  earth 
for  the  sort  of  meekness  that  sits  dumb,  while  flaunting  false- 
hood triumphs  over  us.  The  men  who  are  the  main  leverage 
of  civilization  must  lift  their  voices  loud  and  long  enough  to 
silence  the  betrayers  of  society !" 

Dexter  sat  down  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  silence  still 
more  void  than  the  perfunctory  punctuation  of  Edgerly's 
number  in  the  program.  Although  Dexter  had  in  a  way  voiced 
the  opinions  of  the  Patriarchs,  he  had  not  represented  them, 
and  the  situation  was  much  less  satisfactory  than  if  no  reply 
had  been  made.  The  President  was  in  more  desperate  straits 
than  before,  but  he  hailed  it  as  a  sign  of  hope  when  Joseph 
Morrison  addressed  the  chair. 

In  nine  out  of  ten  lists  of  the  half-dozen  leading  merchants 
of  the  city,  Mr.  Morrison's  name  would  be  included.  His  ap- 
pearance would  mark  him  as  a  scholar  rather  than  a  man  of 
affairs.  He  seldom  volunteered  many  words,  either  in  public 
or  in  private,  and  this  gave  importance  to  the  present  excep- 
tion. He  was  much  in  demand  for  addresses  on  occasions 
that  invited  the  utterance  of  ripe  and  successful  experience. 
Although  he  protested  that  he  had  no  qualifications  for  such 
duties,  and  although  there  was  hesitation  and  almost  diffi- 
dence in  his  manner  whenever  he  undertook  them,  he  never 
failed  to  impress  his  hearers  as  having  spoken  wisely  and  well. 
His  own  shyness,  along  with  his  reputation  for  unerring  judg- 
ment in  practical  matters,  was  in  effect  a  certificate  of  good 
faith.  It  appealed  to  the  confidence  of  people  who  would  have 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


been  ropcllod  by  a  man  who  exposed  his  consciousness  of 
{K)\ver.  When  he  spoke  there  was  a  contraction  of  tlie  nuiscles 
cil"  tile  lips,  tliat  niij;ht  have  been  from  mere  embarrassment, 
but  it  seenuHl  to  be  also  a  playful  and  kindly  smile,  which  was 
a  further  connnendation  to  his  hearers.  Even  in  tliis  com- 
pany of  his  friends,  none  of  wliom  would  have  been  credited 
witli  more  litness  to  speak  for  all,  he  spoke  as  cautiously  as 
though  in  doubt  whether  he  were  really  entitled  to  the 
privilege. 

'"I  liave  nothing  to  add,"  he  began,  in  a  scarcely  audible 
voice,  "to  either  side  of  the  argument.  I  simply  thought  it 
might  help  me  to  get  my  bearings,  and  perhaps  incidentally 
afford  space  for  all  of  us  to  take  soundings  or  a  solar  observa- 
tion, as  the  ca;5e  might  be,  if  I  occupied  a  few  moments,  with- 
out preventing  the  thoughts  of  the  other  gentlemen  present 
from  being  bettor  employed." 

The  irenic  effect  of  this  quaint  self-depreciation  was  visible 
at  once.  The  duljious  looks  began  to  relax,  and  it  wav5  evident 
that  there  was  a  returning  sense  of  security. 

With  but  slightly  increased  force  in  his  voice,  Mr.  Morrison 
continued : — 

"While  our  friends  have  been  speaking,  my  thoughts  have 
turned  to  the  feelings  I  have  sometimes  had  in  the  theatre,  as 
I  watched  a  transformation  scene.  I  have  never  been  able  to 
give  myself  up  to  the  deception.  Perhaps  if  I  had  begun  to 
go  to  the  theatre  when  my  mind  was  more  nimble,  the  case 
would  have  been  different.  Probably  we  do  not  get  our 
money'.s  worth  unless  we  put  our  imaginations  in  the  hands 
of  the  stage  carpenters.  It  is  the  proper  thing,  I  suppose,  to 
accept  fairyland  for  the  time  being,  and  to  forget  hard  facts. 
I  have  never  learned  the  knack  of  doing  it.  I  always  remem- 
ber that  if  I  don't  keep  my  coupon,  I  may  be  called  upon  to 
give  up  my  seat.  I  never  forget  for  a  moment  that  I  am  sur- 
rounded by  folks  just  like  myself,  and  that  the  strange  look 
of  things  hasn't  made  a  particle  of  difference  in  the  world 
where  our  lot  is  cast. 

"During  the  last  few  minutes  especially,  I  had  begun  to 
wonder  whether  I  hadn't  at  last  been  caught  by  a  stage  car- 
penter's trick.  Before  the  talking  began,  I  had  a  comfortable 
feeling  that  the  people  present,  even  those  at  the  speakers' 
table,  were  all  fairly  good  fellows.  AVe  had  every  appear- 
ance of  being  well  disposed  toward  one  another  and  the  rest 

180 


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THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


of  the  world.  Then  came  this  play  of  words.  It  threw  such 
a  mist  over  us  all  that  no  one  seemed  to  keep  his  everyday 
shape.  To  tell  the  truth,  T  had  to  grip  my  chair,  and  the  edge 
of  the  table,  and  then  I  jiinched  myself  to  make  sure  that  my 
senses  were  in  working  order.  Now  that  you  are  taking  on 
your  natural  looks  again,  and  nobody  seems  quite  so  ])ad  nor 
quite  so  good  as  we  were  pictured,  the  net  result  of  the  argu- 
ment foots  up  in  my  mind  about  like  this.  So  far  as  I  can 
take  account  of  stock,  we  have  on  hand  a  working  exhibit  of 
the  kind  of  rumpus  that  may  be  kicked  up  by  a  couple  of 
highpower  word-machines  if  they  get  beyond  control. 

''The  discussion  has  reminded  me  of  a  dream  which  I  had 
several  times  when  I  was  a  boy.  It  probably  started  with  a 
last  look  at  the  bed-post.  In  my  dream  I  was  looking  at  that 
bed-post.  But  it  didn't  stay  a  bed-post.  Something  w^as  the 
matter  with  it.  First  it  grew  to  the  size  of  a  tree.  Then  it 
was  a  steeple.  Then  it  filled  the  whole  sky.  At  last  it  sucked 
up  everything  in  sight,  and  burst  with  a  terrific  crash.  When 
things  got  to  that  pass  T  woke  up,  and  found  myself  sitting 
bolt  u])right,  staring  at  the  same  bed-post. 

"I  wonder  if  that  dream  wasn't  something  like  what  hap- 
pens when  we  turn  words  loose.  Our  differences  of  opinion 
are  bad  enough,  but  the  men  who  hold  the  opposite  views 
would  be  much  less  Hkely  to  take  on  the  appearance  of  bogies, 
if  they  could  be  satisfied  to  refer  to  each  other  in  unfertilized 
language." 

Hosts  and  guests  together  forgot  their  dignity,  and  took 
the  op]iortunity  for  a  good  rest  in  boisterous  enjoyment  of  the 
gentle  caricature.  When  quiet  was  restored,  ^Ir.  Morrison 
began  once  more  in  his  most  cautious  manner. 

"This  was  all  I  had  intended  to  say ;  but  while  I  am  on  my 
feet  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  add  a  single  remark. 

"The  more  I  think  of  how  many  different  kinds  of  people 
it  takes  to  make  a  world,  the  more  T  am  inclined  to  com- 
pare the  condition  of  each  one  of  us  with  that  of  the  practical 
astronomer.  He  has  the  use  of  a  very  expensive  plant.  The 
instrument  may  be  the  most  powerful  in  the  ^vorld ;  but  after 
all  it  is  pointed  out  through  a  narrow^  slit  in  the  dome,  and 
the  observer  may  spend  night  after  night,  and  at  last  his 
whole  working  life,  in  studying  a  patch  of  sky  too  small  even 
to  attract  the  passing  notice  of  the  average  unscientific  man.  I 
can  veiy  w^ell  understand  that  such  an  observer  might  get  so 

181 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


absorbed  in  his  special  interest  that  he  would  be  intolerant 
toward  other  scientists  who  were  observing  other  parts  of  the 
heavens,  and  esj)ecially  toward  investigators  of  other  facts 
of  nature,  which  tended  to  weaken  the  theories  he  had  formed 
from  his  particular  point  of  view. 

"Now.  while  I  am  unable  to  see  that  there  is  any  such  case 
against  capitalists  as  has  been  intimated  this  evening,  I  can 
ejisily  imagine  that,  if  our  telescope  were  pointed  through 
the  opposite  side  of  the  dome,  we  might  di.'jcover  facts  which 
would  modify  our  present  calculations. 

"Prol)al)ly  none  of  us  have  a  right  to  assume  that  our  out- 
look settles  the  truth  for  the  univer.se.  In  my  judgment  we 
all  ought  to  be  willing,  and  T  believe  the  great  majority  are 
willing,  to  take  account  of  all  the  facts  from  every  quarter, 
whenever  they  are  properly  presented.  More  than  that,  if 
we  can  be  sure  that  we  are  in  the  way  to  correct  hasty  con- 
clusions, and  reach  fuller  information,  and  arrive  at  juster 
theory  and  ])ractice — if  we  can  be  reasonably  sure  that  we 
are  doing  this,  and  not  merely  making  a  magic  lantern  of 
our  telescope,  and  pulling  the  ob-ser^-atory  down  over  our 
heads  in  our  excitement,  I  believe  there  would  be  an  over- 
whelming vote  of  business  men  in  favor  of  encouraging  every 
sort  of  investigation." 

This  was  the  first  good  opportunity  for  the  Patriarchs  to 
express  themselves  without  restraint,  as  to  the  real  situation. 
Their  endorsement  of  Mr.  Morrison's  remarks  was  unmis- 
takable. There  was  a  general  feeling  that  peace  had  been 
restored.  In  the  changed  humor  several  of  the  members  were 
mi.'schievous  enough  to  call  for  Mr.  Lyon.  The  suggestion 
caught  the  fancy  of  the  whole  company,  and  the  call  became 
so  insistent  that  he  w^as  obliged  to  make  a  show  of  response. 
He  was  glad  the  test  had  not  come  immediately  after  Edgerly 
had  s-poken.  for  he  would  have  had  no  escape  from  the  quan- 
dary.   He  was  now  all  smiles,  and  entirely  self-possessed. 

The  a.s.sembly  worked  off  more  of  its  pent-up  feelings  by 
vigorous  applause  after  he  had  ri.sen.  His  reply  was  con- 
tained more  in  his  beaming  countenance  than  in  his  words. 

"I  duly  appreciate  this  delicate  attention,  gentlemen,"  he 
Vjegan,  in  his  most  courtly  manner,  "and  I  need  not  assure 
you  that  the  occa.«?ion  has  been  one  of  deep  interest  to  me. 
The  only  contribution  which  I  feel  moved  to  make  to  the  dis- 
cussion, however,  is  the  safe  remark  that,  for  me  at  least, 

182 


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THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


silence  is  golden.  It  has  been  one  of  the  rules  of  my  life  to 
exclude  business  discussions  from  my  family  circle.  The 
working  of  the  rule  the  other  way  forbids  me  to  recognize 
any  of  my  family  skeletons  in  public.  They  will  have  to  be 
dealt  with  in  their  proper  place.  At  present  I  am  glad  to 
subscribe  to  the  remarks  of  my  friend  who  has  just  taken  his 
seat.  I  do  not  know  how  we  could  better  express  our  attitude 
toward  so-called  social  problems." 

The  President  felt  that  the  psychological  moment  had  ar- 
rived for  giving  the  leading  speaker  the  usual  opportunity  to 
close  the  discussion. 

Edgerly  had  by  this  time  lost  all  feeling  of  embarrassment, 
and  he  spoke  as  freely  as  he  would  in  a  faculty  meeting. 

"I  realize,"  he  said,  "that  it  is  presuming  upon  your  pa- 
tience to  reopen  the  subject,  after  the  admirable  statement  of 
our  friend  who  has  given  us  such  an  effective  object  lesson 
in  the  use  and  abuse  of  figurative  language.  At  the  risk  of 
boring  you,  however,  I  venture  to  sum  up  my  case  as  directly 
as  possible.  It  would  be  a  misfortune  if  this  occasion  should 
pass  without  a  better  understanding  of  different  views  of 
social  conditions  which  we  all  in  a  certain  way  find  puzzling. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  should  feel  that  I  had  not  lived  in  vain 
if  I  could  be  sure  that  I  had  got  before  this  company  a  dis- 
tinct view  of  the  point  which  the  gentleman  who  followed  me 
utterly  misapprehends. 

"Everything  that  the  gentleman  said  about  capital  would 
have  been  equally  true  in  itself,  and  equally  irrelevant  to  the 
question  at  issue,  if  it  had  been  alleged  of  the  atmosphere  and 
the  sunlight,  instead  of  capital.  They  too  are  'the  beneficent 
foster  mother  of  all  dasirable  human  effort.'  They  support 
the  fanner  and  the  artisan  and  the  transporter,  and  the  mag- 
istrate. They  conserve  every  thing  useful  to  the  human  race. 
I  have  no  more  question  about  these  facts  in  the  case  of  capi- 
tal than  I  have  in  the  case  of  air  and  sunshine.  But  they 
do  not  come  within  striking  distance  of  the  point. 

"In  order  to  approach  the  real  issue  we  must  suppose  that 
someone  has  invented  machines  which  can  collect  all  the  air 
and  the  sunlight  of  a  city  or  a  county,  and  store  it  in  tanks. 
We  must  suppose  too  that  patents  have  been  granted  upon 
the  machines ;  that  the  laws  protect  the  owners  in  using  them  ; 
and  that  they  propose  hereafter  to  deprive  their  fellow^  citi- 
zens of  the  use  of  atmosphere  and  sunlight  not  drawn  from 

183 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


ihoir  tanks  and  paid  for  accordiiisjj  lo  their  own  tariff.  Wc 
must  suppose  further  that  this  monopoly  of  the  air  and  sun- 
light franehise  is  handed  down  to  their  children  and  chil- 
dren's children,  llow  many  generations  do  you  suppose  it 
would  he  hefore  the  heirs  of  that  monopoly  would  he  heard 
eulogiziui:  themselves  for  conferrinji;  upon  their  fellow  men 
the  incstimahle  benefits  of  air  and  sunshine? 

''Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  not  taking  liberties  with  the  argu- 
ment that  has  been  submitted  in  reply  to  mine  thi.>^  evening. 
r  am  not  putting  any  farcical  element  into  it.  I  am  pointing 
out  the  literal  ah-urdity  that  constitutes  the  whole  ]iroblem. 

"The  only  difference  between  the  case  of  capital  and  the 
one  I  have  supposed  is  that  while  we  cannot  possibly  appro- 
priate any  credit  at  all  to  ourselves  for  the  atmosphere  and 
the  sunshine,  each  of  us  may,  by  due  exertion,  have  a  share 
in  the  creation  of  capital.  But  the  share  that  the  ablest  of 
us  may  contribute  to  capital  is  but  a  minute  fraction  of  all 
the  work  of  other  men  that  goes  to  make  up  that  same  capital. 

"The  panegyric  of  capital  to  which  we  have  listened  de- 
sen'es  to  become  a  clas.«ic  in  the  history  of  human  error.  I 
doubt  if  any  man  has  ever  gone  on  record  with  a  more  spec- 
tacular begging  of  the  whole  question.  The  argument  confi- 
dently assumes  that  the  men  who  now,  under  the  laws  of 
society,  control  capital,  have  themselves,  and  themselves 
alone,  created  the  capital,  and  endowed  it  with  its  beneficent 
qualities,  and  that  the  heirs  of  these  men  will  have  an  incon- 
te.stible  right,  to  the  end  of  time,  to  draw  revenues  from  the 
same  capital.  There  has  been  no  more  arrogant  blunder 
since  King  Canute  imagined  that  the  royal  prerogative  in- 
cluded the  tides  of  the  ocean. 

"I  am  ready  to  grant  for  the  sake  of  argument  if  you 
])lease,  that  every  man  in  any  way  connected  with  property 
de.«er\'es  some  credit  for  the  benefit?  that  inhere  in  capital. 
If  you  demand  it,  I  will  concede  that  the  man  whose  business 
activity  consists  in  watching  a  ticker  and  wiring  his  broker 
to  skim  off  a  margin  when  prices  go  his  way,  is  entitled  to  a 
micro.-:copic  tablet  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  AVestminster 
Abbey  of  capitalism.  I  say  T  will  concede  it  for  public  con- 
sumption, whatever  my  private  opinion  may  be  about  his 
proper  place  in  the  Potter's  Field  of  pauperism.  I  will  agree 
with  you,  without  any  mental  reservation  whatever,  that 
there  are  capitalists  whose  organizing  and  constructive  origi- 

184 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


nality  entitle  them  to  all  the  rewards  of  merit  that  are  due 
to  the  world's  great  inventore  and  discoverers.  Between  these 
extremes  there  are  capitalists  who  have  done  everything  that 
is  in  the  power  of  one  man  toward  producing  the  larger  or 
smaller  capital  they  control,  while  there  are  others  who  are 
the  legal  owners  of  capital,  who  have  rather  less  claim  to 
credit  for  the  existence  of  capital,  or  for  the  benefits  it  confers, 
than  the  man  who  washes  the  bank  windows  has  for  the 
sunrise. 

"Still  further,  the  most  meritorious  service  that  is  ever 
performed  by  the  ablest  man,  in  producing  or  employing 
capital,  starts  with  the  endowment  left  by  all  the  previous 
generations,  and  yet  he  would  amount  to  nothing  if  he  did 
not  work  in  harness  with  hundreds  or  thousands  or  millions 
of  fellow  laborers.  Whether  it  is  the  head  of  the  house  of 
Rothschild,  or  Number  999  in  the  shovel  gang,  he  enters  a 
world  already  fitted  out  with  the  arts,  and  sciences,  and  laws 
and  technologies,  and  stock  and  good  will  that  the  cooperative 
work  of  the  ages  has  accumulated. 

"If  the  best  of  us  were  left  strictly  to  ourselves,  without  the 
use  of  the  accunuilations  and  support  of  other  men,  we  should 
never  be  heard  from,  any  more  than  if  we  were  infants 
abandoned  in  our  cradles. 

"All  this  gives  edge  to  the  distinction  that  the  fact  of  cap- 
ital and  its  benefits  is  something  as  different  from  the  system 
of  human  contrivances  for  handling  capital  as  the  existence 
of  air  and  sunlight  is  from  a  concession  of  a  right  to  tax  peo- 
ple for  the  use  of  these  natural  agents.  Some  men  actually  do 
work  without  which  capital  would  not  be  produced,  or  if  pro- 
duced would  not  be  useful,  and  yet  they  have  no  legal  claim 
to  a  dividend  from  capital.  Other  men  enjoy  the  honors  and 
emoluments  of  capital  who  no  more  deserve  them,  than  credit 
for  the  gifts  of  nature  belongs  to  the  men  who  make  them- 
selves rich  by  befouling  and  beclouding  the  air  and  sunlight 
that  belong  to  their  neighbors. 

"There  is  no  question  at  issue  then  about  the  benefits  of 
capital.  The  whole  social  problem  turns  on  differences  of 
opinion  about  the  fairness  of  the  artificial  code  which  we  have 
devised  to  guard  property  rights  in  capital. 

"In  a  word,  the  point  is  this: — It  is  not  a  matter  of  abridg- 
ing anybody's  rights,  but  of  verifying  titles  to  rights.  Our 
institutions  have  grown  up  in  such  a  haphazard  way  that  the 

185 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


;i»liu>tin(Mit  (if  rewards  and  niorits  which  they  sooiire  is  irre.G;- 
idar,  inconstant,  and  inconsistent.  This  leaves  an  open  jTob- 
loni  of  improving  onr  system  in  the  direction  of  reducing  these 
anomahes  to  a  minimum. 

"Instead  of  committing  an  assault  on  the  stnictural  princi- 
j>les  of  ."Society,  therefore.  I  have  simply  taken  this  occasion  lo 
state  facts  which  are  just  as  real  a.s  those  reported  by  the 
weather  bureau.  You,  of  all  men,  should  have  a  clear  view  of 
these  fiu'l<.  If  you  will,  you  may  do  more  than  any  other 
class  of  men  to  insure  wise  action  in  view  of  the  facts.  I  Vje- 
lieve  that  your  class  is  to  develop  the  leaders  of  the  future, 
who  will  find  their  chief  occupation  in  solving  the  problems 
which  the  facts  involve.  In  the  w^hole  range  of  ])ractical 
business  there  is  nothing  more  certain  than  that  we  are  face 
to  face  with  open  questions  at  once  of  practical  adjustment 
and  of  pure  morals,  touching  the  princi])les  of  distributing 
control  of  economic  force.  We  cannot  dodge  these  questions. 
They  will  open  wider  and  wdder,  and  w411  never  y)e  closed  until 
the  terms  of  settlement  command  the  assent  of  the  sense  of 
justice  alike  of  the  man  without  a  dollar  and  the  man  with  his 
millions." 

After  the  meeting  was  declared  adjourned  a  dozen  mem- 
bers of  the  Club  came  to  Edgerly  to  say  that  they  were  glad 
he  had  s])oken  his  mind.  Each  was  careful  to  say  either  that 
he  did  not  agree  with  him,  or  that  he  was  not  sure  whether 
he  agreed  or  not;  but  they  said  it  was  a  good  thing  to  have  his 
side  of  the  case  presented. 

ITalleck  was  among  the  guests.  On  the  way  to  the  coat 
room  he  caught  Edgerly's  arm  and  hastily  half-whispered, 
"You  never  did  a  better  day's  w^ork  in  your  life,  old  chap! 
There'll  be  nothing  to  show  for  it,  of  course,  but  it's  all  to  the 
good.  You  deserve  a  pension  for  your  fight  tonight  as  much 
as  any  veteran  that  fought  for  the  Union !" 

Logan  Lyon  was  present  on  his  father's  invitation,  and  his 
auto  was  at  the  door.  It  was  but  a  few  minutes'  run  to  ]\Ir. 
Lyon's  house,  and  on  the  w^ay  no  reference  w^as  made  to  the 
di.^cussion.  As  the  car  stopped  to  leave  the  older  man,  he  re- 
mained sitting  a  moment,  as  though  there  was  something  on 
his  mind  of  which  he  wanted  to  speak.  Apparently  he  dis- 
missed the  idea,  however,  for  his  manner  as  he  changed  his 
po.sition  seemed  to  say,  "But  we  will  let  that  pass."    His  only 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PILLARS    OF    SOCIETY 


words  were,  as  he  laid  his  hand  on  Edgerly's  shoulder,  while 
one  foot  rested  on  the  step,  ''Good  night,  boys.  It  was  an  ex- 
tenuating circumstance,  at  any  rate,  Ernest,  that  you  had 
something  to  do  with  keeping  the  reporters  out." 

The  two  younger  men  rode  in  silence  several  blocks,  until 
Lyon,  reaching  for  the  lamp  over  his  head,  and  turning  the 
button,  peered  into  Edgerly's  face,  as  he  quoted : — "  'I  never 
get  over  my  wonder  at  the  homeopathic  quantity  of  thought 
that  can  be  made  to  go  with  a  crowd.'  " 

Edgerly  did  not  at  once  make  connections,  but  felt  around 
a  few  seconds,  till  he  picked  up  the  clue,  and  answered  out  of 
a  rather  sour  smile,  "You  mean  can  not  be  made  to  go  with 
some  crowds!" 

Lyon  gave  full  vent  to  his  yodle.  He  felt  like  a  boy  that 
had  been  obliged  to  keep  still  in  church,  getting  all  the  noise 
he  could  out  of  his  freedom.  "  'Twas  as  improper  as  a  mon- 
key and  hand-organ  in  the  Supreme  Court!  You  couldn't 
have  shocked  those  fellows  more  if  you  had  told  them  it  was 
their  duty  to  take  turns  playing  the  clown  in  the  circus !  It'll 
take  most  of  them  the  rest  of  the  year  to  find  out  whether 
their  champagne  was  doped,  or  it  all  happened  I 

"Seriously  though,"  he  continued,  after  the  spasm  had 
passed,  "some  time  or  other  that  sort  of  thing  has  got  to  come, 
as  sure  as  the  old  earth  keeps  on  turning." 

Then,  as  they  stopped  in  front  of  Edgerly's  house,  Lyon 
added: — "But  you  don't  get  ahead  arguing  with  an  iceberg. 
It's  only  a  question  of  how  long  it  will  take  it  to  melt." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   DOOR  OF   HOPE 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


XII 
THE   DOOR  OF   HOPE 

"Whether  the  world  is  getting  closer  together  or  pulling 
wider  apart,  depends  upon  the  number  of  us  that  shake 
ourselves  free  from  handicaps,  so  that  we  can  count  for 
all  we  are  worth  in  the  common  interest." 


FOR  the  first  three  days  following  the  Armory  meeting- 
Kissinger  was  in  the  state  of  mind  of  a  life-long  pros- 
pector who  had  at  last  struck  pay  dirt.  The  future  was  in 
his  hands.    It  was  simply  a  matter  of  detail. 

A  German  restaurant  not  far  from  the  Avery  building  was 
a  rendezvous  for  men  after  Kissinger's  own  heart,  and  he 
usually  dropped  in  on  his  way  home  from  the  office  for  a 
stein  of  Bairisches,  with  an  incidental  flyer  in  philosophy. 
He  burst  upon  the  group  Monday  evening,  with  such  a  con- 
fident program  of  practical  politics,  in  place  of  the  usual 
transcendental  poetry,  that  his  change  of  base  had  some  of 
the  same  effect  on  them  which  Graham  had  exerted  upon 
him.  Instead  of  talking  abstract  theory,  he  gave  them  a 
prophetic  description  of  the  necessary  workings  of  Graham's 
plan.  He  had  its  application  figured  out  as  a  sure  geometrical 
progression,  both  in  time  and  space. 

Kissinger  did  not  usually  set  the  pace  in  these  cross-plane- 
tary iTins.  He  was  rather  more  used  to  the  position  of  time- 
keeper or  referee.  The  surprise  was  not  chiefly,  however,  in 
his  taking  the  lead,  nor  in  his  sanguine  tone.  The  indicative, 
or  the  imperative,  never  the  subjunctive,  was  parliamentary 
in  these  symposiums,  and  the  unwritten  law  contained  an- 
other clause,  seldom  honored  in  the  breach ;  namely,  the  less 
demonstrable  the  proposition  the  more  dogmatic  the  asser- 
tion. 

But  accustomed  as  they  were  to  course  at  will  over  every 
field  of  human  speculation,  these  enthusiasts  were  not  pre- 
pared to  hear  Kissinger  read  the  specific  doom  of  his  own 
company.  There  had  always  been  a  sort  of  tacit  understand- 
ing that  if  particulars  had  to  be  used  as  terms  of  the  argu- 
ments, they  were  merely  algebraic  signs,  and  did  not  mean 
that  anything  invidious  was  to  be  alleged  of  an  individual 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


J-  or  i/;  nor  that,  if  there  had  been,  any  internieJilling  with 
other  people's  private  aH'aiis  was  conteniphited. 

Ohernitz.  a  reporter  on  the  ]'olLxl>latt,  was  the  first  to  draw 
the  praetieal  moral,  and  to  throw  it  baek  upon  Kissinger  as 
a  pei-sonal  problem.  ''That  sounds  all  veiy  well.  It's  the  way 
we  long  have  sought,  so  far  a-;  words  go.  But  if  you  believe 
it.  Kissinger,  what  business  have  you  any  longer  with  the 
Avery  Company?  You  are  Adjutant  of  the  regiment  that  is 
holding  the  first  line  of  defense.  You  put  in  your  whole  fight- 
ing time  and  strength  defeating  your  own  wishes  and  princi- 
l)les  and  predictions.  If  you  mean  what  you  have  been  say- 
ing, you're  an  infidel  till  you  act  accordingly.  It's  up  to  you 
to  quit  this  treason  to  your  own  cause,  and  get  out  and  hustle 
the  rest  of  your  life  with  (graham." 

Happily  for  Kissinger  the  spjirring  was  lively,  and  two  or 
three  of  the  group  at  once  countered  on  Obernitz  with  the 
same  argamentum  ad  hominein.  The  Volksblatt  had  a  large 
circulation  among  working  people,  but  it  was  never  known 
to  support  a  pro]josition  which  employers  in  general  opposed. 
It  wiLS  doing  its  best  to  discredit  the  Graham  movement. 
That  very  morning  it  had  run  an  editorial  which  the  debaters 
denounced  as  final  proof  that  it  was  an  enemy  of  democracy. 
It  was  betraying  the  people's  cause  to  work  for  such  a  paper. 

Along  this  line  Obernitz  was  pushed  so  hard  that  Kissin- 
ger was  forgotten,  and  unobserved  he  presently  went  his 
way. 

At  the  same  time,  this  rude  awakening  marked  a  longer 
step  toward  self-disc-overy  than  the  exhilaration  which  the 
Armory  meeting  had  stimulated.  As  he  boarded  his  train 
Kissinger  was  saying  to  himself:  "I  have  only  been  in  a 
jiarachute  after  all,  dangling  a  little  lower  in  the  clouds  than 
I  was  before.  It  isn't  terra  firma  till  it  will  bear  one's 
weight." 

The  reaction  did  not  carry  him  quite  back  to  his  former 
fatalistic  position.  He  had  got  beyond  acquiescence  that 
nothing  can  be  done.  Though  the  element  of  resolution  was 
entirely  lacking  in  his  new  ideas,  though  they  did  not  con- 
verge upon  a  change  of  his  own  actions,  they  brought  into 
focus  a  picture  of  feasible  general  action,  in  which,  however, 
he  could  not  yet  find  a  place  for  himself. 

Unsupported  by  a  stronger  will,  Kissinger  was  hesitant  and 
helpless.     He  could  execute  another's  plan.     He  could  pro- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


pose  one  for  another  to  adopt.  Every  detail  would  be  prompt 
and  clear.  He  often  submitted  to  Mr,  Lyon  alternative 
schemes,  each  carried  out  with  such  minuteness  that  his  chief 
would  choose  between  them  instantly,  and  would  have  little 
occasion  to  modify  the  specifications.  To  assume  the  respon- 
sibility of  decision,  however,  was  another  matter. 

Kissinger  had  so  long  acted  only  upon  orders,  that  he  dared 
not  trust  his  own  judgment  until  it  had  been  endorsed  by  a 
higher  authority.  Pie  had  gone  so  far  as  to  profess  his  faith 
in  a  policy  and  a  program.  He  accepted  it  as  concrete  truth, 
not  merely  as  abstract  principle.  He  even  welcomed  the  half- 
clarified  perception  that  it  was  no  truth  for  himself  until  he 
could  do  some  of  it ;  but  here  the  light  failed. 

Kissinger  did  not  admit  that  he  had  argued  himself  to  a 
standstill.  He  would  have  been  more  at  odds  with  the  world 
than  ever  if  he  had  recognized  a  deadlock.  Although  the  new 
insight  made  an  end  of  ignoring  the  collision  between  his 
occupation  and  his  ideals,  and  although  nothing  was  visible 
that  promised  a  change  in  his  position,  yet  he  somehow  felt 
that  he  was  making  progress.  He  thought  of  Bunyan's  hero, 
after  he  had  seen  the  way  but  had  not  resolved  to  start.  He 
thought  of  the  rich  young  man  who  was  directed  to  find  eter- 
nal life  by  giving  all  he  had  to  charity,  and  casting  his  lot 
with  the  wandering  teacher.  He  thought,  with  suddenly  in- 
spired worldly-wise  shrugs  and  sneers,  of  the  smug  doctrine  of 
the  mobility  of  labor ;  but  on  the  whole  he  reassured  himself 
that  he  M'ould  move,  and  was  moving,  and  that  his  rate  of 
movement  was  rather  commendable,  or  at  all  events  that  his 
detection  of  the  traditional  under-estimate  of  the  difficulty  of 
moving  entitled  him  to  credit  for  the  equivalent  of  moving. 

On  the  other  hand  there  was  no  escape  from  two  facts: — 
the  Avery  Company  represented  everything  that  the  new 
democracy  opposed,  and  he  was  the  Company's  servant.  Yet 
he  w^as  less  baffled  by  the  problem  of  finding  a  position  not 
open  to  the  same  objection,  than  by  the  difficulty  of  recon- 
ciling himself  to  separation  from  the  Company.  His  case 
against  it  was  thoroughly  impersonal.  Kisvsinger  admitted  to 
himself  that  if  Graham's  ideals  could  be  realized  tomorrow 
he  would  ask  from  the  Company  nothing  better  for  himself 
than  he  had  enjoyed  from  the  beginning.  He  was  interested 
in  improving  his  own  condition  only  in  the  sense  that,  as  he 
saw  it,  the  prime  minister  of  a  king  was  inferior,  other  things 

193 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


hoiiic:  o(]ual.  to  tlio  priiiio  ininistor  of  a  tribune  of  the  people. 
He  frankly  confessed  to  himself  that  it  would  he  not  only 
out-of-date  honihast.  hut  out-of-eharaeter  pretense,  if  he  should 
att'eet  toward  his  old  employers  any  of  the  fabulous  Roman 
sentiment,  "What's  banished,  but  set  free  from  daily  contact 
\nth  the  things  I  loathe!" 

Whatever  mi.uht  have  been  the  chances  that  Kissinger  would 
resolve  the  situatiou  alone,  he  was  not  left  to  the  ex])eriment. 
For  the  twentieth  time  01)ernitz  went  to  Graham  next  morn- 
ing in  search  of  a  "story,"  and  in  the  course  of  the  interview 
Graham's  allusion  to  his  need  of  helpers  led  up  to  the  mention 
of  Kissinger.  There  might  be  nothing  in  it,  but  they  agreed 
that  no  harm  could  be  done  by  a  talk  with  him.  When  the 
suggestion  was  fii-st  brought  to  Kissinger,  however,  his  obli- 
gations to  the  Company  seemed  to  veto  his  personal  inclina- 
tions. He  said  that  such  a  meeting  was  impossible  unless  he 
first  resigned  his  position.  ITe  could  hardly  enter  and  leave 
the  strike  headquarters  without  being  recognized,  and  there 
was  little  probability  tliat  in  the  present  state  of  public  sen- 
timent the  incident  could  be  kept  from  the  newspapers. 
Whether  he  was  su])posed  to  be  a  spy,  or  an  informer,  or  the 
bearer  of  a  feeler  from  the  Company,  the  complications  would 
be  too  serious  to  be  risked. 

Graham  had  not  intended  to  be  understood  as  proposing  a 
meeting  at  his  office,  but  on  some  neutral  ground,  and  under 
circum.stances  that  would  seem  accidental.  Through  further 
mediation  of  the  reporter,  whom  both  knew^  to  be  reliable, 
they  agreed  later  in  the  sea.son  to  be  on  the  path  bordering 
the  lagoon  inlet  south  of  the  German  building  in  Jackson 
Park,  at  two  o'clock  of  a  Saturday  afternoon.  There  was 
safety  in  such  publicity,  as  there  was  only  the  remotest  chance 
that  either  would  be  recognized,  and  none  whatever  that  both 
would  be  known  by  the  same  people.  Besides,  a  few  min- 
utes' casual  conversation  in  such  a  place,  even  if  it  were  ob- 
served, would  have  no  significance. 

Graham  not  only  remembered  Kissinger,  from  chance  en- 
counters in  groups  of  labor  leaders  before  the  strike,  but  in 
advance  of  Obernitz'  latest  reports  he  had  been  sufficiently 
informed  to  schedule  the  Avery  executive  as  border  territory. 
Graham  divided  the  business  population  into  three  groups; 
first,  those  who  do  no  thinking  outside  the  routine  of  their 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


occupations ;  second,  those  who  rate  business  as  grab,  and  take 
the  game  as  it  is,  on  the  chance  of  sometime  being  among  the 
hicky  ones  to  get  the  rich  pickings;  third,  those  who  are  on 
princi])le  disgusted  with  the  system,  and  would  quit  it  or  re- 
form it  if  they  could.  He  had  no  doubt  that  Kissinger  was 
in  the  third  class,  but  he  realized  that  it  would  be  a  much 
harder  problem  to  get  effective  action  out  of  this  last  class 
than  to  make  theoretical  converts  from  the  first  to  the  third. 

Kissinger  was  so  wedded  to  habit,  and  so  loyally  conscien- 
tious, that  after  they  had  stopped  in  a  secluded  spot  on  the 
sunny  slope  of  the  terrace,  and  had  stretched  out  on  the  turf, 
he  made  the  first  approaches  to  the  vital  question.  He  began 
by  protesting  that  it  must  be  considered  a  purely  personal  in- 
ter\aew,  with  no  bearing  whatever  on  the  campaign  between 
the  strikers  and  the  company. 

Graham  met  him  quickly  with  the  response,  "We  won't 
misunderstand  each  other,  Mr.  Kissinger.  I  take  it  to  mean 
simply  that  if  we  were  astral  bodies  we  should  hover  in  the 
same  plane?" 

This  way  of  putting  it  was  neither  quite  direct  enough,  nor 
in  a  figure  sufficiently  familiar,  to  suggest  a  proper  reply. 
Graham  was  one  of  the  men,  however,  who  accelerate  other 
people's  mental  action,  and  make  them  surprise  themselves 
vnth  unexpected  conclusions.  Seeming  to  take  agreement  for 
granted,  he  a.ssumed  the  initiative  without  waiting  for  an 
answer.  "In  other  words,  you  must  remember,  Mr.  Kissin- 
ger, that  I  could  no  more  afford  to  have  our  talk  misinter- 
preted than  you  could.  If  it  should  be  known  that  we  had 
approached  each  other,  it  might  easily  be  said  that  I  was 
weakening,  and  trying  to  find  a  way  to  hedge.  I  need  pro- 
tection against  that  thought  in  your  mind  too,  as  much  as 
you  do  against  the  possibility  that  I  may  suspect  you  of  will- 
ingness to  give  the  Company  away.  Now  let  us  put  both 
these  ideas  aside.  Let  us  say  nothing  about  the  strike  at  all. 
If  I  believed  you  were  the  kind  of  man  who  would  betray 
your  employers,  I  should  have  no  use  for  you ;  and  if  I  were 
looking  no  further  than  the  mere  issue  with  your  Company 
it  wouldn't  be  worth  my  while  to  talk  about  any  goods  that 
you  have  a  right  to  deliver.  I  am  after  something  much  more 
important  than  that,  and  I  vnW  come  to  it  in  a  minute." 

The  man's  genuineness  was  even  more  transparent  in  such 
a  face-to-face  talk  than  when  he  addressed  an  audience.    Kis- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    UOOR    OF    HOPE 


jiiii^cr  dill  not  iiood  to  be  disarmed,  but  lie  was  iimiiodiately 
roas>urod,  and  had  no  more  (•()mi)UiU'tioiis  al)out  waiting  for 
devolojimonts. 

"It  would  be  mere  }i,"uessw(irk  to  talk  about  niunbers,"  con- 
tinued CJrahani,  "until  we  have  some  way  to  make  an  aetual 
count;  but  every  body  who  lias  taken  the  trouble  to  keep  his 
eyes  and  ears  open  knows  that  discontent  w'ith  our  economic 
system  is  not  confined  to  wage-earners.  There  isn't  a  rank  in 
the  business  or  political  scale,  from  bank  messenger  to  Chief 
Magistrate,  which  hasn't  its  quota  of  re])resentativcs  who 
might  be  loosely  termed  socialists.  That  is,  they  kiuickle  to 
the  j)resent  order  of  things  because  they  can't  help  it.  They 
have  all  sorts  of  grievances  against  it,  from  superlicial  to 
radical;  but  a  lot  of  them  believe  it  is  a  pretty  virulent  case 
of  blood  poisoning.  Some  of  them  have  no  theory  of  a  way 
to  better  things,  beyond  demanding  the  general  rule  of  the 
square  deal.  Others  see  that  new  princi]>les  have  got  to  be 
injected  into  the  .system  before  it  will  be  very  much  im- 
proved. But  Avith  all  these  men,  (;xcei)t  one  in  a  thousand 
perhaj)S,  bread  and  butter  have  the  last  word.  If  these  people 
could  follow  their  own  instincts  they  wouldn't  let  things  alone 
another  minute.  They  would  ask  no  better  occupation  than 
social  surgery.  Hut  they  have  got  to  live,  and  that's  the  end 
of  it.  I  figure  that  there  are  thousands  of  first-rate  men  who 
are  reformers  at  heart,  i)ut  they  can  see  no  way  to  finance  their 
atliliations.  If  the  dollar  (piestion  could  be  disposed  of,  it 
wouldn't  take  them  very  long  to  make  the  ])roverb  read, 
'Where  there's  a  way  there's  a  will.'  1  count  you  in  (hat  class, 
Mr.  Kissinger." 

With  more  ring  in  his  voice  than  usual,  Kissinger  answered 
promj)tly,  "If  you  had  asked  me  that  question  within  forty- 
tiglit  hours  after  the  Armory  meeting,  I  should  liave  said 
yes,  without  turning  a  hair;  but  now  I  am  not  so  sure  of 
myself.  It  w(nild  cost  me  a  good  many  different  kinds  of 
wrench  to  break  away  from  the  connections  I  have  made  in 
more  than  twenty  years.  1  know  just  what  to  expect  where 
I  am.  I  fit  there.  Perhaps  I  can  make  as  much  impression 
after  all  in  the  line  of  my  .social  theories  in  my  old  place  as 
I  could  anywhere  else.  Perhai)S  it  is  impractical  to  count  on 
reforming  busines-s  in  one  man's  lifetime,  and  after  all  I'm 
not  sure  that  a  man  is  best  placed  to  helj)  reform  when  he's 
on  the  outside.    Suppose  I  could  get  into  a  business  that  was 

196 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


run  acc'ordiiifz;  to  my  ideas.  Wouldn't  the  sanio  reasoning 
that  pushed  me  into  it  drive  me  to  look  for  further  trouble 
bucking;  against  the  deeper  evils  of  the  world?  If  we  should 
get  our  economies  on  a  moral  basis,  there  would  still  be  all  the 
other  jiains,  and  sorrows,  and  accidents,  and  disappointments 
of  life,  that  we  can't  touch.  Wouldn't  it  he  just  as  practical 
for  me  to  retire  to  a  dasert,  and  tlock  all  alone  by  myself,  or 
cojnmit  suicide,  because  the  world  is  a  crazy  affair  anyhow 
and  I  can't  help  it,  as  it  would  be  to  throw  up  the  work  that 
T  can  do  well  and  launch  out  on  a  doubtful  experiment?  Sup- 
])ose  1  have  another  twenty  years  of  work;  is  the  world  likely 
to  be  any  better,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  for  anything  I  can 
do  in  another  place,  than  it  would  be  if  I  kept  on  with  the 
Com])any?" 

"That's  easy,"  Graham  answered,  in  his  most  energetic 
manner.  ''The  world  is  always  better  off  when  one  more  man 
concludes  peace  with  himself.  No  single  one  of  us  is  going 
to  star  in  the  United  States  Census,  whatever  he  does  or  leaves 
undone.  He  can  make  neither  a  mountain  nor  a  cavern  of 
Iiimself.  Rut  the  world  is  composed  of  these  minute  units 
after  all,  and  whether  the  world  is  getting  closer  together  or 
pulling  wider  apart  depends  on  the  number  of  us  that  shake 
ourselves  free  from  handicaps,  so  that  we  can  count  for  iill 
we  are  worth  in  the  connnon  interest.  From  nine  o'clock  till 
four  every  day  you  do  more  to  perpetuate  the  system  of  ex- 
ploitation than  you  can  offset  for  democracy  in  the  rest  of 
your  twenty-four  houi-s.  We  don't  ordinarily  consider  it 
innch  of  a  puzzle  to  fix  the  standing  of  a  man  when  he  is  run- 
ning behind  at  that  rate." 

Because  Kissinger  was  convinced  but  not  persuaded,  he 
could  find  nothing  more  to  say.  Graham  waited  long  enough 
to  satisfy  himself  that  it  was  not  a  case  for  argument,  but  for 
impulse,  and  then  he  rapidly  sketched  his  plans  for  putting 
his  democratic  propaganda  on  a  permanent  basis.  He  de- 
scribed an  educational  undertaking  that  combined  features  of 
a  press  bureau,  and  university  extension,  and  correspondence 
study  for  wage  earners.  He  explained  that  he  had  intended  to 
develop  this  work  regardless  of  the  results  of  the  Avery  strike, 
and  to  continue  such  strikes  for  their  educational  value,  what- 
ever the  economic  outcome.  He  showed  how  the  plan  of  in- 
structing working  men  was  to  be  combined  with  systematic 
pressure  upon  employers,  on  the  one  hand,  and  upon  the  poli- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DOOR    OF    HOPE 


tifiaiis  oil  (ho  otlior,  to  jiiako  room  for  labor's  share  of  repre- 
sentation hoth  in  hnsiness  and  in  hi\v-niakinj>;.  On  its  active 
side  it  was  to  he  a  elearini2;-honse  of  labor  interests.  It  would 
not  set  up  a  theory  of  soeial  organization,  beyond  the  funda- 
mental ])rineiple  that  wage-earners  have  interests  which  are 
not  sulheiently  protected  at  present,  and  that  concerted  action 
by  wage  earners  is  the  only  means  of  getting  fair  recognition 
for  tlieir  share  in  the  economic  ]irocess.  The  bureau  must 
have  branches  for  half  a  dozen  different  nationalities  which 
could  be  reached  effectively  only  in  their  mother-tongue.  The 
cnteri)rise  was  not  a  mere  temporary  expedient,  but  was  to  be- 
come a  fixture  among  our  economic  and  ])olitical  institutions. 

Then  Graham  stated  brieHy  the  financial  standing  of  the 
]'roject.  He  woidd  himself  guarantee  the  working  capital, 
and  ex]iansion  of  the  sco]ie  of  the  bureau  would  be  provided 
for  by  iiolding  and  increasing  the  present  membership.  The 
small  fees  would  secure  the  publications  and  ])ay  the  expenses 
of  local  organization. 

"Now,  Sir.  Kis.singer,"  he  concluded,  "neither  of  us  is  in 
a  po.sition  to  commit  himself  absolutely  on  a  matter  of  this 
importance.  I  simply  want  to  put  before  you  a  tentative 
J  proposition.  Entirely  apart  from  this  democratic  crusade,  I 
nuist  have  a  i>crinanent  Chicago  office  for  my  western  busi- 
ness. I  see  no  reason,  however,  why  the  agent  in  charge  of 
that  office  could  not  at  the  .«ame  time  be  the  executive  officer 
of  this  bureau.  He  could  then  have  his  share  both  in  experi- 
menting practically  with  the  principle  of  labor  representation 
on  the  business  side,  and  he  could  spread  the  theory  in  the 
educational  campaign.  He  w-ould  not  be  responsible  for  the 
plans  in  either  case,  except  as  one  among  many ;  but  chiefly 
for  carrying  out  policies  which  I  should  adopt  with  my  di- 
rectors. In  that  respect  it  would  be  very  much  like  your  pres- 
ent position.  Your  experience  with  the  Avery  Company,  and 
your  direct  touch  with  the  Germans,  are  the  two  elements  that 
would  make  you  valuable  on  the  basis  of  your  fundamental 
social  theories.  I  am  starting  east  tonight  for  a  few  speeches 
in  the  Mas.sachusetts  campaign.  I  may  be  gone  two  weeks. 
I  simyjly  ask  you  to  decide  in  that  time  whether  you  would 
consider  a  proposition  to  take  one  or  both  of  these  positions, 
f)rovided  I  could  satisfy  you  that  you  wvjuld  lose  nothing 
financially  by  leaving  the  Avery  Company." 

198 


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THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


Very  little  more  was  said  on  either  side,  and  with  the  lui- 
derstanding  that  they  would  arrange  through  Obernitz  for 
another  meeting  after  his  return,  Graham  hurried  away 
through  the  amphitheatre  toward  the  Sixty-first  street  station. 

Kissinger  crossed  the  boulevard,  and  walked  south  along 
the  lake  front.  He  was  not  the  first  theorist  whose  fine-spun 
systems  had  buckled  when  tested  by  the  weight  of  a  trial.  He 
believed  still,  but  he  was  shaken  in  his  assumption  that  his 
beliefs  had  the  carrying  power  he  had  supposed.  He  began 
to  compare  himself  with  a  man  who  had  spent  his  life  design- 
ing trusses  to  span  a  stream,  but  had  paid  no  attention  to  the 
piers.  The  call  to  risk  himself  upon  his  own  constructions 
forced  attention  to  the  subject  of  adequate  supports. 

It  was  one  of  those  i)lausible  Sj^ring  days  which  would  as- 
sure a  stranger  to  the  capricious  climate  that  Summer  had 
taken  possession.  Kissinger  stopped  on  the  bridge  by  the  side 
of  the  Caravels,  seating  himself  on  the  parapet  and  dallying 
with  the  query  whether  Columbus'  adventure  was  really  more 
precarious  than  Graham's  proposal.  Then  he  wandered 
shoreward  along  the  boulevard  to  the  extreme  park  limit. 
While  hesitating  whether  to  return  by  the  same  route,  or  to 
circle  the  lower  end  of  the  park,  he  stood  inviting  the  gentle 
fanning  of  the  breeze  from  the  lake.  He  gradually  reversed 
his  position,  till  the  broad  stretches  of  awakening  verdure 
made  the  half  of  the  picture  on  his  left,  while  the  pall  of 
smoke  that  filled  the  upper  quarter  on  the  right  took  from  im- 
agination all  excuse  for  effort  in  construing  the  harbor  en- 
trance a.'*  the  jaws  of  the  pit. 

A  few  days  earlier  Kissinger  would  have  felt  that  he  was 
doing  a  man's  part  if  he  had  poetized  the  contrast  into  a  sym- 
bolic expression  of  the  difference  between  life  as  it  should  be 
and  as  it  is.  With  Graham's  realness  still  clutching  him,  he 
hadn't  the  face  so  to  dignify  child's  play,  and  his  more  virile 
thought  kept  breaking  into  his  passive  contemplation  wath 
the  impish  question,  "Yes,  but  what  does  it  mean  for  me?" 

It  was  not  true  that  Kissinger  was  hiding  behind  his  wife. 
He  was  too  much  of  a  man  for  that.  He  knew  that  if  he 
could  manage  himself,  he  could  easily  take  care  of  the  other 
obstacles.  Still  he  frankly  dreaded  the  unavoidable  family 
discussion,  in  case  he  should  decide  to  take  the  plunge.  He 
did  wish  that  he  could  have  his  -vAnfe's  help  in  settling  his 
mind,  but  he  had  long  ago  given  up  that  recourse.     They 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


couUl  talk  only  iibout  utterly  indifVcrcnt  or  perfectly  obvious 
5;ul)jei'l.-^. 

Kissintjer  would  have  rcsi)ected  his  wife's  differences  from 
him  in  opinion  if  he  could  have  tolerated  the  grounds  on 
which  her  opinions  restc'd.  The  fact  that  nothing  which  he 
regarded  a^!  imjiortant  had  a  similar  rating  in  jNIrs.  Kissinger's 
mind,  and  tliat  the  things  which  seemed  to  her  essential  had 
for  him  simply  the  value  of  trifle.-=,  left  as  alternatives  either 
constant  friction  or  exchange  merely  of  the  most  colorless 
and  commonplace  ideas.  He  always  felt  humiliated  when- 
ever he  and  his  wife  disagreed,  and  even  more  so  when  he 
wa:>  obliged  to  insist  upon  his  own  view  than  Avhen  he  yielded 
to  hers.  In  neither  ca«;e  did  the  outcome  represent  arrival 
at  a  common  judgment.  It  was  a  mere  giving  way  by  one 
to  the  other,  for  no  reason  that  was  regarded  as  sufficient  by 
the  acquiescing  party.  Kissinger  \vas  too  chivalrous  to  be 
comfortable  in  requiring  concessions  from  his  wife,  and  in 
their  case,  therefore,  the  law  that  without  concessions  there 
can  be  no  partnership  had  resulted  in  reducing  their  married 
life  to  a  drearily  empty  alliance. 

From  babyhood  Elsie  had  been  their  one  effective  bond  of 
union.  However  their  own  interests  were  drawing  them 
apart,  their  common  devotion  to  the  child  had  always  been  a 
stronger  factor.  Their  views  of  life  necessarily  converged 
upon  very  different  ideas  about  Elsie's  interests,  yet  Kissinger 
had  usually  been  able  to  convince  himself  that  a  mother's 
judgment  about  a  daughter  has  the  better  claims,  and  he  had 
seldom  felt  bound  to  go  far  in  urging  his  dissenting  opinions. 

Although  Elsie  had  been  absent  for  several  weeks  on  an 
eastern  visit  with  Hester  Kinzie,  she  unconsciously  helped  her 
father  to  tide  over  a  difficult  evening.  The  incident  of  the 
afternoon  embarrassed  him  as  though  he  were  harboring  a 
guilty  secret.  Mrs.  Kissinger  was  not  at  home  when  he  re- 
turned, but  she  arrived  just  at  the  dinner  hour,  and  her  prat- 
tle about  Elsie's  visit,  and  the  letter  that  had  come  from  her 
after  Mr.  Kissinger  had  left  home  that  morning,  was  a  wel- 
come cue  for  dismissing  less  agreeable  things  and  getting  all 
the  sun.shine  possible  out  of  their  one  common  interest. 

After  dinner,  instead  of  turning  to  the  evening  paper,  Kis- 
singer insisted  that  his  wife  should  read  the  letter  aloud.  She 
assented,  on  condition  that  he  would  hear  it  to  the  end  with- 
out comment,  and  would  discuss  it  as  a  whole  afterwards.    He 

200 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


accepted  the  terms,  and  after  he  had  Ughted  his  cigar  Mrs. 
Kissinger  read  with  as  much  sympathy  as  though  she  had 
Avritten  the  letter  herself: — 
"My  best  beloved  Ones: — 

"Hester  says  it's  only  the  Boston  altitude,  and  I  would  get  used  to  it 
in  time;  but  looking  inward  at  any  rate  I'm  growing  wilder-eyed  the 
longer  it  lasts. 

' '  We  have  scratched  the  surface,  from  the  Cambridge  elms  to  Plymouth 
Rock;  and  we  have  had  some  deeper  glimpses  too,  for  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  family  altars  of  the  Arlingtons  and  the  Beacons,  as  well  as  the 
Hartleys,  are  safely  within  the  Holy  of  Holies. 

"Of  course  the  mysteries  are  not  solemnized  very  elaborately  between 
seasons,  but  that  leaves  the  neophyte  with  a  little  self-assertion,  instead  of 
completely  overawed,  as  would  surely  be  the  case  under  sudden  introduc- 
tion to  the  full  ritual. 

"We  have  been  in  the  presence  of  all  the  extant  antiquities  and  local 
peculiarities  celebrated  in  song  and  story,  from  Old  South  Church  to  baked 
beans,  and  codfish,  and  clams  in  a  dozen  lightning  change  characters.  The 
ruins  are  as  authentic  as  restorations  ever  dare  to  be,  but  the  menu  is  no 
longer  much  more  to  the  manner  born  than  a  shopping  procession  in  front 
of  Marshall  Field 's  is  made  up  of  aborigines.  So  far  as  things  go,  half  a 
dozen  pairs  of  contrasts  that  I  can  think  of  between  different  parts  of  our 
piebald  Chicago,  are  as  extreme  as  any  difference  I  have  noticed  between 
the  two  cities  as  a  whole;  but  it's  the  people!  The  hysterics  of  streets  in 
the  old  part  are  really  something  to  be  grateful  for.  They  afford  me 
instant  relief.  They  seem  to  be  saying,  in  the  only  unstudied  language  one 
finds,  that  once  upon  a  time  the  inhabitants  did  as  they  felt,  and  the 
thought  that  the  same  may  happen  again  sometimes  lasts  nearly  back  to 
Commonwealth  Avenue. 

* '  The  folks  keep  up  a  mental  action  that  would  register  large  figures  on 
the  cyclometer,  but  it  doesn't  seem  to  be  thinking.  It  is  more  like  a 
machinery  for  automatic  selection  of  predigested  foods,  and  the  tableware 
to  match.  I  am  sure  the  confirmation  questions  must  start  with  the  danger 
of  falling  into  mortal  sin  by  serving  vegetables  in  the  soup  tureen,  or 
drinking  hock  and  claret  from  the  same  kind  of  glass.  I  infer,  too,  that 
when  spiritual  unction  is  nearly  ready  to  descend,  the  moral  chasm  sepa- 
rating a  Websterian  from  a  Worcesterian  pronunciation  is  opened  up  in 
its  whole  appalling  breadth  and  depth ;  and  at  last,  when  the  sensibilities 
are  in  their  most  plastic  state,  the  veil  is  lifted  and  the  novice  is  given  a 
vision  of  the  fall  from  grace  that  would  be  involved  in  an  ungoverned 
exclamation  of  surprise,  when  a  vaguely  questioning  contraction  of  the 
optic  muscles  would  convey  the  precisely  adequate  degree  of  attention. 

"The  day's  program  doesn't  seem  to  leave  any  place  for  yourself. 
You  are  merely  a  celebrant  reading  the  appropriate  offices.  It  reminds  me 
of  the  Delsarte  system  of  expression.  It  is  all  right  if  your  breeding  has 
predisposed  you  to  associate  postures  and  sentiments  in  that  way;  but 
what  if  the  Avaunt-and-quit-my-sight  passages,  for  instance,  suggest  to 
you  only  a  deaf  and  dumb  lady  who  has  washed  her  hands  and  doesn't 
find  a  towel? 

"Living  on  cold-storage  emotions  doesn't  remind  me  of  the  upper 
ether,  but  of  a  diving  bell  and  breathing  through  a  tube.  Hester  and  I 
have  developed  a  set  of  private  signals.    WTien  she  slowly  deflects  her  chin 

201 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


ill  my  (iirci'tioii  till  ;i  str.-iifjht  lino  to  tho  tiji  of  her  nose  would  run  at  an 
an^lo  of  'J.')  dojjroos  with  hor  shoiildors,  and  when  in  tliat  attitude  she  fixes 
on  Mie  a  heartstirrinf;  look  of  niinfjled  warning  and  appeal,  which  the  spec- 
tators are  too  polite  to  notice,  but  which  tliev  take  in  all  the  same,  as  say- 
ing plainer  than  words,  'Child  of  wrath!  Ivot  us  beware  lest  we  fail  to  be 
dulv  impressed  by  the  profound  import  of  all  this  propriety!  ' — when  she 
does  all  that,  it  means  a  wink.     The  rest  of  the  code  is  equally  elaborate. 

"Ou  the  outside,  Hester  fits  into  the  function  as  though  she  didn't  know 
anv  better,  but  1  see  now  why  she  wanted  me.  When  we  can  let  each  other 
know  by  wireless  that  we  are  throwing  hand  springs  in  spirit,  wo  take 
courage'  from  the  recollection  that  wo  have  lived  through  other  similar 
days  and  that  there  will  be  respite  presently  in  our  kimonas. 

"We  have  seen  fifty  Boston  girls  that  are  the  real  article.  T  like  them 
too,  and  shall  take  their  part  hereafter  no  matter  what  people  say.  They 
can't  help  it.  They're  genuine  inside  at  the  start.  They  have  good  blood 
and  could  be  counted  on  to  better  the  record  of  their  ancestors  if  they  had 
a  chance,  but  it 's  the  environment.  They  're  perfectly  healthy  modern 
girls,  and  to  cramp  them  into  their  deportment  must  hurt  in  the  beginning 
as  much  as  it  does  when  they  stutf  their  physical  culture  bodies  into  the 
fancy  ball  costumes  of  Louis-Quatorze  beauties.  By  watching  specimens 
at  the  different  stages,  from  sixteen  to  forty-five,  I  have  decided  that  the 
asbestos  veneer  spread  on  by  their  education  is  carnivorous.  It  eats  its 
way  in  from  the  outside  with  greater  or  less  rapidity  according  to  circum- 
stances, till  at  last  the  arteries  are  encased  in  it,  and  it  acts  like  the  ice  on 
the  coil  of  tubes  in  the  water-cooler. 

"There's  another  side  to  that,  too.  Something  that  I  haven't  stumbled 
on  must  upset  that  calculation  when  these  girls  marry,  because  they  do 
make  perfectly  fine  husbands  out  of  the  most  depressing  material.  I  have 
turned  with  fond  recollection  to  our  letter  carrier  and  gas  inspector  as 
antidotes  for  these  youths  in  their  twenties.  Some  of  them  are  said  to 
have  been  the  delegates  to  take  their  year's  beating  from  Yale  in  various 
events,  but  they  appear  to  be  too  far  out  of  training  now  for  anything 
more  strenuous  than  selecting  haberdashery.  If  they  were  as  precocious 
as  the  stories  say,  perhaps  nature  evens  up  matters  by  exacting  a  lifeless 
decade  or  so  before  they  recover  their  grip.  At  present  they  seem  to  have 
no  surplus  left  over  from  the  preoccupation  of  retouching  their  own  men- 
tal photographs. 

"The  Hartleys  are  dears.  They  show  what  all  this  was  when  it  was  in 
the  making,  when  it  came  from  the  inside,  when  it  didn't  have  to  be  put 
on  like  blinders  on  a  thoroughbred.  They  are  interested  in  everything, 
from  Bible  classes  to  prize  fights, —  at  least  I  accidentally  discovered  that 
he  goes  that  far  in  the  way  of  keeping  up  his  information, — but  every 
thing  about  them  seems  to  be  in  the  only  proper  proportion  to  everything 
else.  If  they  are  serious,  they  are  gay,  and  studious,  and  sportive,  and 
sympathetic,  and  restful,  and  busy  and  affectionate  enough  to  make  each 
part  of  it  seem  just  perfect.  They  never  make  me  uncomfortable,  yet 
whenever  I  am  with  them  I  have  a  feeling  that  it  would  be  nice  to  repent 
of  something,  if  I  only  knew  what.  They  keep  me  thinking  that  perhaps 
people  will  all  sometime  learn  to  make  life  as  beautiful  as  they  do. 

' '  I  don 't  know  whether  I  understand  at  all  what  architecture  means, 
but  the  other  day  as  I  was  looking  at  the  original  drawings  of  Trinity,  the 
idea  came  to  me  that,  if  it  should  ever  be  completed  according  to  the 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


design,  it  would  be  a  true  picture  in  stone  of  the  Hartleys  as  I  have  seen 
them. 

"But  we  have  only  to  make  the  short  run  to  Channing's  in  Brookline  to 
see  the  father  undone  in  the  son.  In  looks  he  will  be  his  father's  double 
at  the  same  age,  but  unless  he  mends  his  ways  that  will  be  the  end  of  the 
resemblance.  He  might  as  well  be  a  grub-staker  burrowing  for  gold ;  only 
in  his  case  it's  politics.  He  says  he  is  practicing  law  merely  to  keej)  him- 
self out  of  mischief  when  he  can't  be  laying  wires  that  will  end  in  the 
Senate.  I  call  him  an  instance  of  the  reclaimed  incorrigible,  but  his  wife 
says  he  is  no  better  than  a  Chicago  man. 

"Two  or  three  letters  ago  I  began  to  tell  you  about  the  other  half,  as 
we  had  seen  it  from  the  Settlement.  We  are  not  through,  but  it 's  a  long 
story,  and  I  don't  believe  you  would  care  to  have  me  put  more  of  it  on 
paper. 

"It  is  getting  to  be  second  nature  with  me  to  think,  talk,  dream  and 
scribble  ])hilosophy — if  that  is  what  you  will  call  this  letter.  I  feel  it 
coming  stronger.  I  will  let  you  off  with  this  much  now,  but  I  have  caught 
the  infection,  and  just  as  likely  as  not  it  will  become  chronic.  You  must 
expect  progressive  worse. 

"With  lots  of  kisses  to  my  dear  both  ELSIE." 

Following  the  reading,  for  seconds  that  may  have  run  into 
minutevS,  the  father  and  mother  merely  met  each  other's  si- 
lently inquisitive  smiles.  ]\Irs.  Kissinger's  patience  first 
reaching  its  limits,  she  prompted  her  husband  with  the  gentle 
spur,  "Tell  me  what  you  think,  Walther." 

''You  know,"  he  hesitated,  "Boston  means  little  to  me  but 
State  Street.    I  wouldn't  risk  an  opinion  beyond  that." 

"Yes,"  persisted  Mrs.  Kissinger,  "but  on  general  principles, 
does  it  sound  as  though  the  visit  would  be  of  any  use?" 

"Why,  she  is  evidently  getting  some  new  ideas,"  Kissinger 
reflected.  "Whether  she  is  right  or  not  in  her  estimates,  she 
has  got  her  mind  on  discriminations  that  are  worth  making. 
I  have  no  doubt  it  will  help  her  look  with  sharper  eyes  on 
Chicago  people." 

"But  that  wai=n't  what  I  meant  exactly,"  returned  his  ■\^dfe. 
"Will  it  help  her  socially?  Will  she  be  any  more  likely  to 
take  advantage  of  her  chances?  You  know  a  girl  can't  afford 
to  keep  on  too  long  regardless  of  her  prospects.  I  had  thought 
she  might  meet  some  one  in  Boston  who  would  impress  her 
more  than  any  one  seems  to  have  here." 

Although  Kissinger  was  not  often  humorously  inclined, 
he  could  not  refrain  from  recurring  innocently  to  the  very 
strong  impression  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hartley  had  evidently 
made  upon  Elsie! 

203 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOOR    OF    HOPE 


"You  iiro  too  oxasperatin<i-,  Walther,"  Mrs.  Kissinger 
j>outO(i.  "You  ought  to  realize  that  it  makes  no  difference 
wliat  Elsie  thinks  of  the  present  generation  of  })ilgrini  grand- 
fathei"s.  Y'ou  are  never  willing  to  admit  that  we  arc  taking 
our  dutie.^  too  lightly  about  getting  her  a  husband." 

"My  oteen-ation  has  been,"  Kissinger  submitted,  rather 
tangentially,  ''that  in  this  counti-y  at  any  rate,  the  less  the 
parents  show  their  hand  before  tliey  bear  from  the  young 
people  the  safer  they  are  from  putting  their  foot  in  it." 

Kissinger  was  aware  that  this  reflection  would  touch  a  ten- 
der spot,  but  he  had  not  nmch  hope  that  his  wife  would  be 
decoyed  from  pursuit  of  its  substance  by  the  provocation  it 
gave  to  her  jealous  zeal  for  form.  He  guessed  that  Mrs.  Kis- 
singer was  looking  for  an  opening  to  introduce  a  conference 
about  several  men  who  were  within  the  radius  of  her  hopes  or 
fears.  He  was  not  only  in  a  partially  contrite  mood  for  the 
errant  conduct  of  the  afternoon,  but  he  foresaw  that  he  would 
not  remain  constant  enough  to  block  off  further  temptation. 
Acting  as  his  own  confessor,  and  assuming  occasion  for  both 
absolution  and  indulgence,  he  resigned  himself  to  the  unwel- 
come discussion,  as  the  most  convenient  form  of  penance. 


204 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   RENEGADE 


THE    RENEGADE 


XIII 

THE   RENEGADE 

"All  the  men  whose  brains  are  not  thicker  than  their  necks 
will  come  to  it  sooner  or  later.  Some  of  them  still  get  their 
fun  going  West  to  kill  bear,  but  as  a  pure  sporting  propo- 
sition coming  East  to  rescue  the  unconscious  rich  from 
themselves  has  a  sure  shade." 


AT  first  Hester  Kinzie's  interest  in  Elsie  had  been  merely 
a  renewal  of  obligation  under  a  debt  of  gratitude  in- 
curred in  his  early  manhood  by  her  father.  When  young 
Kinzie  came  a  stranger  to  Chicago,  Mrs.  Kissinger's  parents 
had  been  timely  and  effectual  friends.  Not  only  had  they 
smoothed  his  way  to  social  recourse  from  the  dismal  isolation, 
or  more  dreadful  promiscuity,  which  would  have  been  the 
alternatives  in  those  earlier  days,  but  the  business  connections 
which  enabled  Kinzie  in  a  few  brilliant  years  to  take  his  place 
among  the  richest  men  of  the  town  would  hardly  have  been 
formed  without  the  help  of  Mr.  Wells.  When  the  reverses 
came  which  hastened  his  benefactor's  death,  Mr.  Kinzie  was 
in  Australia,  and  he  knew  nothing  of  the  difficulties  till  it 
was  too  late  to  offer  assistance.  After  his  return  he  was  able 
to  be  of  more  service  than  he  permitted  Mrs.  Wells  to  know, 
in  recovering  something  from  the  iTiins  of  the  property ;  but 
his  sense  of  obligation  was  quickened  by  the  incident,  and 
he  later  cultivated  the  sentiment  also  in  his  daughter. 

During  their  irregular  visits  to  Chicago,  in  her  childhood, 
Hester  gravely  took  for  granted  a  partnership  with  her  father 
in  a  sort  of  formal  protectorate  over  Elsie.  The  difference  in 
their  ages  favored  this  juvenile  affectation.  Only  within  the 
last  few  years  had  the  two  girls  begun  to  be  drawn  together  by 
mutual  attraction.  Neither  was  fully  aware  that  a  change 
was  going  on,  but  in  a  short  time  the  stilted  acquaintance  was 
merged  into  spontaneous  affection. 

Superficially  Elsie  was  the  active,  virile  element  in  the 
friendship,  and  a  compensation  for  Hester's  negative  gentle- 
ness. The  precise  contrary  was  the  underlying  truth.  Elsie 
was  buoyant,  and  vivacious  and  insatiably  interested ;  but  in- 
stead of  proving  constancy  of  will  and  steadiness  of  purpose, 

209 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


her  animation  merely  reflected  her  guileless  vagrancy,  and 
her  tractahility  by  any  sort  of  alluring  stinuilus. 

Ile.-ter  was  externally  j)lacid.  She  had  only  rare  moments 
of  effervescence.  This  was  not  because  she  was  dull  or  tired 
or  cold.  She  had  tested  a  range  of  reactions  far  beyond  El- 
sie's experience,  yet  there  was  not  a  sated  fiber  in  her  body. 
For  her  own  consciousness  every  nerve  was  an  e  string;  but 
although  a  beginner  she  was  too  w^ell  trained  to  permit  a  note 
to  be  strident.  From  her  outlook  upon  life  not  an  Autumn 
tint  was  in  sight.  Even  the  storms  were  benisons.  But  some- 
where she  had  picked  up  the  clue  that  life  is  a  palimpsest,  and 
that  the  surface  readings  are  mere  minor  flourishes  upon  the 
deeper  lines  that  all  say  "Problem!"  and  "Mystery!"  She 
had  found  a  life  centre  for  herself  in  the  implied  challenge. 
She  had  no  desire  to  be  known  as  learned,  and  she  did  not 
care  to  delve  very  far  into  the  lores  that  had  made  the  reputa- 
tion of  scholars,  but  she  found  her  animus  in  the  inces.sant 
provocation  to  prv'  beyond  accepted  versions  into  the  re- 
moter meanings  of  familiar  things.  Her  appetite  for  life  was 
uncloyed  simply  because  she  was  not  dependent  for  variety 
upon  a  succession  of  new  tastes.  None  of  the  old  sensations 
had  lost  their  zest.  If  she  w^as  not  constantly  detecting  fresh 
flavors,  she  was  sure  they  were  playing  hide  and  seek  wdth 
her.  Instead  of  finding  the  world  in  herself,  she  was  trying 
to  find  herself  in  the  w^orld.  Her  manner  of  mildly  amused 
serenity  was  not  passiveness.  It  was  merely  a  decorous,  if 
withal  a  coquettish  veil  for  vigilant  scrutiny  of  life,  and  for 
the  resolved  unwomanliness  of  forging  toward  a  fulcrum  for 
moving  life,  instead  of  submitting  without  recourse  to  the 
decrees  of  tradition. 

Hester's  mental  attitude  was  not  apparent,  because  its  be- 
trayals were  mostly  inquisitive  rather  than  a.ssertive.  If  she 
ventured  to  express  secessionist  ideas,  they  were  usually  in 
the  form  of  questions,  or  at  most  of  playful  satire.  In  Johna- 
than  Edwards'  time  her  skepticism  would  no  doubt  have  been 
charged  to  belated  childish  forwardness.  It  was  in  reality 
one  of  the  active  phases  of  her  maturing  sense  of  responsi- 
bility. 

Without  her  knowledge  or  consent,  Hester  had  been  fore- 
doomed to  the  vocation  of  wealth.  While  her  father  had 
never  caught  other  views  of  the  social  basis  of  morality  than 
the  detached  rays  which  real  life  perforce  refracts  upon  the 

210 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


most  opaque  individualistic  philosophy,  he  had  done  his  best 
to  teach  his  dauf^hter  all  that  he  himself  understood  about 
the  duties  of  wealth.  As  she  was  about  to  become  her  own 
agent  in  performing  these  duties,  she  found  herself  reopening 
the  questions,  What  are  they?  and  Why  are  they? 

Hester  was  so  much  a  child  of  the  present  that,  without 
recognizing  many  of  the  sources  from  which  she  drew  the 
opinion,  she  had  reasoned  out  for  herself  that  ''ought"  is 
merely  a  guide-post  to  the  directions  in  which  our  actions 
might  do  other  people  good,  while  "ought  not"  is  a  warning 
of  directions  in  which  our  actions  would  do  other  people  harm. 
When  she  had  gone  so  far,  it  was  a  short  step  to  the  inference 
that  the  duties  of  wealth  must  be  discovered  by  finding  out 
just  how  different  kinds  of  actions  connected  with  wealth 
affect,  well  or  ill,  near  or  remote  human  beings.  She  was  not 
aware  that  she  had  worked  her  Avay  back  close  to  the  founda- 
tions of  social  philosophy.  Not  as  a  technical  scientific  pur- 
suit, however,  nor  as  a  mere  intellectual  fad,  l)ut  as  a  conscien- 
tious preparation  to  act  her  part  with  the  most  good  and 
least  harm  to  others,  she  was  quietly  practicing  the  art  of 
tracing  cause  and  effect  in  all  sorts  of  human  actions. 

If  this  search  was  Avorth  while  for  herself,  Hester  thought, 
why  would  it  not  be  the  proper  initiation  into  life  for  every- 
body? She  did  not  believe  that  people  generally  took  very 
long  views  about  the  consequences  of  their  acts,  nor  that  they 
cared  so  very  much  about  the  consequences,  except  for  them- 
selves. For  this  reason  she  w^as  forewarned  when  she  found 
in  the  legal,  or  moral,  or  social  codes,  or  the  economic  systems, 
or  the  religious  doctrines  that  people  had  built  up,  greater  or 
lesser  elements  which  provoked  her  active  doubt.  What  else 
could  be  expected  of  the  narrow  and  selfish  people  that  we  find 
ourselves  to  be?  For  the  same  reason,  she  reflected,  the 
sophisticated  attitude,  both  toward  our  own  indi\adual  im- 
pulses and  toward  public  institutions,  is  not  standing  in  awe 
of  them  but  in  judgment  over  them. 

All  this  reasoning  was  a  sort  of  by-conscious  process  in 
Hester's  mind,  and  it  rather  stimulated  than  retarded  her 
complaisant  avidity  of  life.  She  divulged  her  speculations, 
even  to  Elsie,  only  in  the  concrete ;  but  tw^o  people  cannot  be 
constantly  saying  to  each  other,  "This  is  better  or  worse,  truer 
or  falser  than  that,"  without  gradually  coming  to  an  open 
agreement  or  disagreement  about  the  implied  standards  of 

211 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


juilgnient.  Siiu'O  resio;nin,c;  her  precocious  protectorate  over 
Elsie,  Hester  had  neither  in  thought  nor  in  act  assumed  the 
more  jtriixtiisli  rule  of  proselytizer;  yet  the  mentor  and  the 
guide  were  rather  privileged  than  submerged  in  the  friend. 
Tiie  two  girls  i-ould  not  have  selected  each  other  if  their  kin- 
ship of  spirit  liad  not  been  on  a  high  level.  Hester  did  not 
try  to  persuade  herself  that  no  mission  was  concealed  in  her 
affection  for  Elsie.  It  wix?  not  a  project  of  conversion,  how- 
ever, but  of  rescue  from  perversion.  Hester  read  Mrs.  Kissin- 
ger like  an  open  book,  and  was  sure  that  Elsie's  instincts 
were  truer  than  her  mother's  turgid  ambitions.  She  accord- 
ingly had  never  a  compunction  about  plotting  like  a  terrorist 
to  secure  for  Elsie  liberty  to  be  herself. 

It  was  merely  a  consistent  detail  in  this  program  for  Hester 
to  claim  Elsie's  company  on  her  latest  visit  to  her  father's 
only  sister.  Between  the  houses  of  Hartley  and  Lyon  there 
had  long  been  amicable  feud  over  Hester's  first  allegiance. 
She  did  not  know  in  which  family  she  felt  the  more  at  home, 
and  she  tried  to  divide  her  time  so  evenly  between  them  that 
no  preference  would  appear  in  the  comparison. 

Channing  Hartley  advertised  no  altruistic  motives  for  his 
.«hare  in  politics.  He  neither  coined  pious  phra.ses,  nor  pro- 
tested superior  principles.  He  simply  joined  a  new  crowd 
that  settled  down  to  business  with  the  blunt  notification  to  all 
concerned,  "We're  in  the  field  to  .~tay  until  we  down  the  fel- 
lows who  have  been  'it'  so  long  they  suppose  they  own  Massa- 
chusetts for  good  and  all."  Any  one  w'ho  knew  Hartley  would 
be  sure  that  in  his  own  mind  there  were  finer  sentiments  be- 
hind this  coarse  profession  of  policy ;  but  he  accepted  the  fact 
that  politics,  to  amount  to  anything,  must  be  rough  riding, 
not  a  Spring  review ;  and  he  thought  it  would  be  ample  time 
to  check  up  moral  values  after  actual  results  were  in  evidence. 

Hartley  was  entering  his  auto  Sunday  evening,  after  a  few 
moments  at  his  father's,  when  he  recalled  something  and  re- 
turned to  the  house.  Following  their  voices  to  the  music 
room,  where  Hester  and  Elsie,  in  deference  to  the  day,  were 
attempting  some  passages  from  the  Messiah,  he  interrupted : — 
"It  just  occurred  to  me,  girls,  that  in  the  course  of  your  re- 
searches into  the  impending  poor  and  the  impenitent  rich  you 
might  care  for  a  side  look  at  politics.  I  am  to  preside  at  a  big 
meeting  in  Mechanics'  Hall  Tuesday  evening,  and  your  Chi- 

212 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


cago  trouble-maker,  Graham,  will  be  the  chief  speaker.  If 
you  are  interested,  Clara  will  add  the  matronly  dignity,  and 
I  will  provide  seats  and  escorts." 

The  suggestion  was  caught  up  so  promptly  that  Hartley 
was  further  inspired,  "If  the  species  should  turn  out  to  be 
worth  studying  under  the  microscope,  as  well  as  through  the 
opera  glass,  come  to  breakfast  with  us  Wednesday  morning. 
Graham  will  be  there,  and  may  be  you  will  be  able  to  persuade 
him  to  be  good  when  he  returns  to  the  seat  of  war." 

"My  impression  is  that  he  is  not  a  native  product,"  cor- 
rected Hester.  "He  is  said  to  be  an  exotic  of  rare  variety.  It 
would  be  unwise  to  miss  him  though,  don't  you  think,  Elsie?" 

"Irrespective  of  the  question  whether  there  are  imaginable 
contingencies  in  which  a  Chicago  man  of  high  or  low  degree 
could  fail  to  afford  temporary  mitigation  in  Boston,"  rumi- 
nated Elsie  aloud,  "I  should  like  to  shake  hands  with  a  real 
anarchist.  Unless  his  teeth  and  claws  have  been  drawn,  it 
will  be  too  exciting  for  anji;hing.  Nothing  could  keep  me 
away  Mr.  Hartley." 

The  personal  note  was  clearest  to  both  girls  until  the  chair- 
man had  finished  his  opening  address.  The  hall  was  simply 
one  among  many  halls,  and  the  audience  merely  a  duplicate 
of  other  audiences.  The  particular  issues  of  the  campaign 
were  rather  indistinct  to  Hester  and  Elsie,  but  the  chairman 
was  a  dashing  speaker.  lie  evidently  knew  how  to  reach  his 
hearers,  and  if  his  special  guests  missed  any  of  the  fine  shad- 
ing of  his  allusions,  they  more  than  made  up  for  the  failure 
by  their  zeal  in  applauding  every  winning  of  applause,  and 
by  their  prompt  signals  of  congratulation  to  Mrs.  Hartley 
at  each  of  these  passages  of  her  husband's  success. 

There  was  no  time  to  exchange  interest  for  indifference  be- 
fore Graham's  personality  began  to  make  its  own  appeal. 
The  vague  expectations  of  a  ruffian  or  a  freak  were  forgotten 
until  the  talking-over  after  reaching  home ;  and  the  surprise 
of  a  presence  so  incongruous  with  reputation  enforced  atten- 
tion. 

The  speech  was  in  substance  the  same  that  Graham  had 
delivered  at  the  Armory  meeting,  with  variations  adapted  to 
the  local  situation.  Although  the  thought  did  not  escape 
Elsie,  it  was  again  the  personal  that  affected  her  chiefly.  To 
her  the  speech  was  an  exploit,  and  the  speaker  a  champion. 

213 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


A  more  oxiiihitioii  of  iin|nilsive,  dare-devil  defiance  of  lii^s 
I'la^s-lniditions  would  have  been  amusing  as  a  spectacle,  but 
not  convincing:.  Graham's  apparent  plane  of  action,  however, 
threw  the  usual  motives  of  men  into  such  sordid  shadow  that 
the  contnist  in  his  favor  was  splendid. 

If  this  personal  aspect  did  not  make  the  chief  impression 
upon  Hester,  it  was  not  because  she  observed  it  less,  but  be- 
cause she  attended  to  the  w4der  meanings  more.  Not  that  she 
heard  anything  strictly  new,  but  im]^ersonated  in  Graham 
mere  thoughts  became  vital  and  spiritual  as  conviction  and 
effort.  Tlie  world  had  predestined  this  man,  like  herself,  to 
service  in  the  livery  of  wealth.  He  was  resisting  subjection  to 
the  service  and  seizing  its  control.  He  was  promoting  the 
service  from  serfish  to  knightly.  Was  this  merely  a  tempo- 
rary indix-idual  digression  from  the  straight  and  narrow  path 
of  general  necessity,  or  had  he  broken  an  arbitrarv  tether, 
and  recovered  a  liberty  that  would  help  others  to  freedom? 
Was  there  anything  in  his  solution  that  might  fit  as  a  key  to 
her  own  problem  ?  The  question  came  to  her : — If  the  work- 
ing of  the  world's  machinery  frees  some  people,  withput  ac- 
tion of  their  own,  from  all  concern  about  the  necessities  of 
life,  why  isn't  it  the  first  duty  of  such  people  to  invest  their 
freedom  in  working  on  the  problem  of  ways  and  means  to 
endow  everybody  w4th  the  necessities  of  life? 

The  breakfast  table  was  under  an  awning  near  the  west- 
ern veranda,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hartley  waited  for  their  guests 
in  a  markee,  flanked  by  silver  birches,  toward  the  foot  of  the 
lawn.  Hes-ter  and  Elsie  arrived  but  a  moment  in  advance 
of  Graham,  and  after  he  had  been  presented  Mrs.  Hartley, 
leading  the  way  with  Graham  toward  the  breakfast  tent,  be- 
gan to  furnish  conversational  pointers  by  adding  that  their 
cousin  was  at  home  in  Boston,  but  Miss  Kissinger  was  from 
Chicago. 

Elsie  was  ready  with  the  expected  demurrer,  and  main- 
tained the  claim  of  Chicago  to  Hester.  After  a  skirmish  that 
wa":;  rapid  and  general,  Mrs.  Hartley  triumphantly  appropri- 
ated the  results  of  its  inconclusiveness : — "So  you  see.  Miss 
Kinzie  is  not  only  altogether  a  Bostonian,  but  Miss  Kissinger 
herself  is  almost  naturalized." 

''T  must  still  beg  your  pardon,  Mrs.  Hartley,"  Elsie  re- 
sisted loyally,  "I  am  neither  naturalized  nor  even  domesti- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


cated.  You  have  no  idea  of  the  main  force  it  requires  every 
minute  to  protect  all  these  decencies  of  civilization  from  the 
scandal  of  my  savage  instincts." 

"While  we  have  our  logic  in  working  order,"  interposed 
Hartley,  "we  might  a.s  well  clean  it  all  up  in  one  job,  and 
prove  Mr.  Graham  a  Bostonian." 

"If  taking  the  precaution  to  be  born  in  Ohio,  then  in  a 
moment  of  over-confidence  risking  one's  birthright  by  com- 
ing to  Harvard,  and  in  the  nick  of  time  getting  back  to 
reality  via  the  crags  and  peaks  of  Idaho  proves  it,  there  is  no 
need  of  a  contest,"  was  Graham's  quick  confession. 

"Then  you  surely  know  many  Boston  people?"  encouraged 
the  hostess. 

"Whole  white-robed  choirs  of  them,  Mrs.  Hartley,"  Gra- 
ham asseverated  solemnly.  "At  least  I  did,  but  I  fear  their 
faculty  of  forgetfulness  knows  what  is  expected  of  it.  I 
should  probably  run  into  a  sharp  fall  of  temperature  if  I 
ventured  to  presume  on  the  past.  It  is  a  long  way  back  to 
'95.  Even  two  fairly  serious  years  in  Law  would  have  quite 
a  record  to  show  in  the  way  of  effacing  eligibility,  but  the 
dubious  meanwhile  leaves  no  margin  for  doubt.  If  anyone 
dared  to  admit  by-gone  acquaintance  with  such  a  renegade, 
the  limit  would  not  go  beyond  your  husband's  venture ;  that 
is,  recognition  for  politics'  sake  only." 

In  the  few  hours  the  two  men  had  been  together,  they  had 
found  a  common  footing  which  pvit  them  on  easy  terms.  They 
had  agreed  on  such  fundamental  matters  that  they  had  been 
able  to  chaff  each  other  rather  roughly  over  differences  about 
somewhat  important  details.  Even  before  hi^  display  of  skill 
with  an  audience.  Hartley  had  decided  that  Graham  had  in 
him  the  material  for  a  national  leader.  Graham's  independ- 
ence of  thought,  and  courage  in  action,  were  no  stronger  con- 
firmations of  that  judgment  than  his  modesty  and  his  playful 
humor.  Hartley  said  he  always  deducted  a  few  cubits  from 
his  estimate  of  a  man's  stature  if  it  turned  out  that  he  wasn't 
big  enough  to  laugh  at  himself.  Meeting  Graham  on  his  own 
ground,  Hartley  retorted : — 

"I  don't  really  believe  the  story  that  you've  taken  the  anti- 
dress  coat  vow,  Graham." 

"Just  as  likely  as  not  I  may  some  time  have  some  more 
evening  clothes  built,"  conceded  Graham,  "if  they  would  save 
society  extra  expense  for  special  police.    I  have  no  implacable 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


quarrol  witli  tbeni.  It's  chiefly  the  terra-alba-frosting  people 
you  have  lo  level  down  to  wlien  you  wear  them." 

The  women  had  been  biding  their  time  for  luring  Graham 
into  talk  of  his  campaign.  lie  avoided  it  in  such  company 
only  to  the  extent  of  insisting  that  the  advances  must  be  made 
by  others.  Mrs.  Hartley  surmised  as  much,  and  threw  the 
fly  in  the  rather  glaring'hint;  "I  though  last  evening  that  in 
time  I  might  learn  partially  to  approve  of  you  in  the  abstract, 
Mr.  Graham,  if  it  were  not  for  the  danger  of  your  convincing 
my  husband." 

"It's  the  only  first-rate  substitute  for  out-door  exercise,  Mrs. 
Hartley,"  returned  Graham  gaily.  ''All  the  men  whose 
brains  are  not  thicker  than  their  necks  will  come  to  it  sooner 
or  later.  Some  of  them  still  get  their  fun  going  West  to  kill 
bear,  but  as  a  pure  sporting  proposition,  coming  East  to  res- 
cue the  unconscious  rich  from  themselves  has  a  sure  shade." 

"I'm  afraid  this  mixture  of  idioms  is  a  little  beyond  us  all, 
Graham,"  laughed  Hartley.  "Break  it  gently,  and  in  home- 
made terms." 

"If  I  should  be  more  literal,"  Graham  objected,  "I  should 
be  talking  shop  in  spite  of  myself." 

"So  much  the  better,"  fugued  Hartley  and  the  three 
women,  each  in  a  different  version. 

""With  apologies  barred  then,"  consented  Graham,  "at  your 
order  I'll  yard-stick  and  scissor  a  length  of  my  dry  goods.  In 
the  first  place,  I  take  it  everybody  with  his  red  corpuscles  all 
right  gets  more  excitement  out  of  a  game  that  contains  possi- 
ble new  situations,  than  out  of  one  in  which  all  the  variations 
are  understood  and  plotted.  The  money  game  has  been  re- 
duced to  a  mechanically  exact  science.  Not  everybody  is  com- 
petent to  play  it,  of  course,  any  more  than  every  one  is  fit  to 
play  chess.  But  if  the  people  who  have  the  talent  for  either 
game  want  to  learn  it,  and  can  get  a  license,  and  will  pay  the 
price,  they  can  make  the  one  about  as  regular  as  the  other." 

"Then  you  don't  have  a  chapter  of  the  Down-and-Out  Fra- 
ternity in  your  part  of  the  world?"  punctuated  Hartley. 

"Of  course  we  have  the  scramble  between  individuals,  to 
strip  one  another  of  the  wealth  that  is  produced,  and  this  in- 
troduces uncertainty.  On  the  whole,  this  confusion  is  better 
in  the  long  nm  than  the  other  extreme  of  dropping  competi- 
tion, and  .settling  down  content  to  feed  on  our  own  fat;  just 
as  the  blood  vendetta  is  preferable,  biologically,  to  the  misery 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


of  mere  incestuous  breeding  in  and  in.  As  a  strictly  social 
proposition,  however,  we  have  played  the  money  game  to  a 
stalemate. — I'm  mixing  this  chess  figure  a  little,  and  it 
musn't  be  carried  too  far,  but  it  helps  some — The  social  game 
has  never  been  played  at  all,  beyond  the  bare  rudiments.  It 
all  remains  to  be  worked  out,  and  this  gives  its  superior  sport- 
ing value.  To  turn  back  on  myself  a  bit,  the  really  gamy 
thing  that  is  right  ahead  is  to  take  hold  of  our  economic  in- 
terests and  organize  them  into  full  harmony  with  all  the  other 
social  interests  somewhat  as  though  we  had  now  only  check- 
ers, and  were  wrestling  with  the  problem  of  variations  that 
would  finally  turn  out  to  be  chess." 

Hester  had  thus  far  hardly  joined  in  the  conversation  ex- 
cept with  her  eyes,  or  as  an  occasional  monosyllabic  echo  of 
one  and  another.  As  Graham  paused,  and  no  one  else  vouch- 
safed a  reply,  she  observed  demurely,  ''It  isn't  possible,  Mr. 
Graham,  that  you  took  down  a  roll  of  rather  large  figured 
wallpaper,  instead  of  plain  drilling?" 

Graham's  laugh  rippled  with  the  others,  but  as  he  seemed 
to  wait  for  further  specifications,  Hester  added,  ''In  other 
words,  could  it  not  be  brought  within  the  reach  of  a  still 
feebler  grade  of  intelligence?" 

"It's  not  easy  to  get  one's  breath  after  such  a  rebuke,  Miss 
Kinzie,"  faltered  Graham.  "If  I'm  as  muddy  as  that,  I'm 
in  a  bad  way,  but  I'll  make  one  more  try.  In  a  word,  civilized 
society  has  gradually  taken  on  the  character  of  a  machine  for 
the  manufacture  of  capital.  The  machine  is  not  run  for  the 
supreme  purpose  of  promoting  knowledge,  virtue,  art,  relig- 
ion, or  merely  general  human  comfort.  All  these  are  merely 
incidental  and  secondary  to  the  single  purpose  of  the  machine. 
Most  of  the  men  who  engineer  the  machine  don't  know  this. 
They  think  it  is  under  their  control,  a  docile  domestic  servant, 
trained  to  do  the  bidding  of  their  higher  impulses.  They 
think  it  is  malicious  libel  to  lay  bare  the  real  situation.  It 
doesn't  make  any  difference  how  lofty  minded  men  are. 
Capital  either  does  or  does  not  have  the  last  word.  If  it  does, 
whether  they  know  it  or  not,  they  are  committed  to  a  program 
that  consumes  men  for  the  sake  of  producing  things.  There 
is  going  to  be  a  time  when  political  parties  will  split  on  the 
straight  issue,  'God  or  Mammon;'  and  when  they  have  got 
that  antithesis  far  enough  into  their  heads  to  realize  the 
actual  role  it  plays  in  human  affairs,  very  likely  the  pro- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


m'esj^ivos  will  give  llioiusolves  the  grand  air  of  having  dis- 
covered a  brand  new  principle  of  social  cleavage." 

"Let  nie  point  yon  not  to  nse  that  metaphor  in  the  Massa- 
chnsett^  campaign,"  Hartley  interjected  half-seriously.  ''The 
coroner's  verdict  might  be,  'Didn't  know  it  was  loaded  with 
Rnni-Romanism-and-Rebellion !'  " 

(Jraham  facetiously  crossed  himself,  but  he  was  thinking 
less  of  the  warning  than  of  a  more  effective  way  of  expressing 
his  meaning. 

"Tf  I  seem  to  be  talking  poetry  instead  of  literal  every-day 
politics,"  he  resumed,  "let  me  recall  a  parallel  case.  ]  have  a 
friend  nearly  twice  my  age  whose  father  was  a  large  slave 
owner  in  the  South  before  the  war.  The  son  is  now  a  farmer 
in  his  home  state.  The  first  time  I  \4sited  him  there  he  gave 
me  his  theory  of  the  economic  weakness  of  the  slave  system 
He  said  it  meant  simply  clearing  more  land,  to  feed  more  nig- 
gers, to  clear  more  land,  to  feed  more  niggers,  to  clear 
more  land,  and  so  on  in  an  endless,  empty  circle.  Clear- 
ing land  and  feeding  niggers  was  a  process  that  tended 
to  impoverish  both,  and  to  keep  the  people  who  imagined  they 
were  masters  of  the  process  from  realizing  that  they  too  were 
its  slaves.  They  were  not  able  to  get  outside  of  it  far  enough 
to  take  their  bearings,  and  lay  their  course  toward  a  more 
profitable  purpose.  Now  my  Southern  friend's  historical  an- 
alysis put  me  on  the  track  of  the  radical  vice  in  our  business 
situation.  The  capitalistic  system  is  simply  a  disguised  repe- 
tition of  the  same  stupidity.  Stripped  of  all  fine  phrases,  its 
program  in  brief  is  to  employ  more  capital,  to  employ  more 
labor,  to  employ  more  capital  to  employ  more  labor,  to  employ 
more  capital,  in  an  endless  series.  But  the  la,=t  thinkable 
term  of  the  process  always  turns  out  to  be  capital,  not  people. 
The  human  beings  concerned  are  not  considered  as  persons, 
but  as  labor  force,  worth  what  they  are  worth  as  producers  of 
capital.  The  magnificent  fellows  who  are  officers  of  this  sys- 
tem are  usually  honest  when  they  deny  that  they  are  heartless 
and  heedless  of  their  fellow  men.  There  is  genuine  traged'y 
between  their  personal  sentiments  and  the  gravitation  of  the 
system  in  which  they  are  satellites.  The  men  who  are  sup- 
posed to  be  the  realists  par  excellence  of  the  modern  world, 
the  men  who  never  lose  their  heads,  the  men  who  see  things 
as  they  are,  and  act  always  and  only  upon  evidence,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  evidence, — these  men  have  brought  into  the 

218 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


world,  and  are  frantically  fighting  to  fasten  upon  the  world,  a 
system  of  control  of  which  the  essential  principle  is  a  direct 
inversion  of  real  values.  The  highest  and  best  that  we  know 
anything  about,  the  last  sane  reason  we  can  offer  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  world  at  all,  is  the  happiness,  and  prosperity 
and  development  of  human  beings.  Everything  which  is 
tributary  to  that  is  good.  Whatever  tends  to  become  a  substi- 
tute for  that  is  bad.  Our  capitalistic  system  in  its  present 
spirit  reverses  the  destiny  of  humanity.  It  puts  last  first  and 
first  last.  The  big  thing  for  men  to  undertake,  therefore,  is 
the  subjugation  of  capital.  We  have  got  to  redeem  our  ma- 
chinery, and  run  it  for  all  it  is  worth  in  the  interests  of  people, 
and  for  the  production  of  more  machinery  only  when  the 
interests  of  people  create  the  demand." 

The  monologue  passed  into  lively  discussion,  and  the  party 
had  returned  to  the  markee,  where  the  women  were  resum- 
ing w^ork  on  some  banners  to  be  included  in  the  scheme  of  dec- 
oration for  a  garden  party  that  was  on  the  program.  His  wife 
was  so  absorbed  in  the  argument  that  Hartley  had  been 
obliged  to  propose  the  move ;  and  after  they  were  comfortably 
disposed  in  the  new  location  he  reopened  the  proceedings: — 
"We  were  just  getting  warmed  up  to  the  subject.  Go  ahead, 
Graham." 

"You  have  been  explicit  enough  at  last,  Mr.  Graham,"  Hes- 
ter deposed  by  way  of  supporting  the  motion,  "to  give  me  one 
or  two  gleanis  of  comprehension.  It  is  getting  a  little  like 
calling  the  culprit  by  name,  how^ever.  I  feel  like  throwing 
myself  on  the  clemency  of  the  court  by  admitting  that  when 
anyone  says  'capital'  it  may  include  me,  though  I'm  by  no 
means  an  officer." 

"I  feared  the  worst.  Miss  Kinzie,"  returned  Graham,  with 
a  rather  well  executed  counterfeit  of  solicitude.  "Capital, 
like  other  contagions,  respects  neither  youth,  beauty  nor  inno- 
cence. I  had  already  discovered  its  marks  upon  your  noble 
brow,  but  as  you  w^ere  evidently  let  late  into  the  plot,  it  would 
be  unjust  to  regard  you  as  an  original  offender." 

Then,  with  the  thought  that  this  personal  application 
barred  further  argument,  Graham  began  to  inspect  some  of 
the  unfinished  work,  at  the  same  time  taking  the  most  ob- 
vious line  of  retreat  by  moving  to  discontinue.  "To  tell  the 
truth,"  he  protested,  "there  is  no  stopping  place  when  one 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


starts  oji  this  subject ;  and  T  am  niiich  more  interested  in  hear- 
ing your  phms  for  the  hnvn  fete  than  in  hstening  any  longer 
to  my  own  voice." 

"Hut  we  can't  let  you  off  so  easily,  Mr.  Graham,"  urged 
Mrs.  Hartley.  ''You  had  not  come  to  the  point  at  all.  It  was 
about  the  sporting  proposition." 

''I  don't  just^ yes!    I  remember,"  stammered  Graham. 

"It  wjLs  about  more  fun  in  an  improved  game.  That's  ea.sily 
cleared  up,  and  then  no  more  shop  till  tonight  in  Haverhill. 
To  put  it  briefly,  the  capitalistic  game  reminds  me  of  football 
in  the  days  when  mass  plays  were  in  their  glory.  The  game 
was  reduced  to  a  dreary  minimum  of  nothing  but  brute 
force  advancing  the  ball.  It  was  entirely  negligible  senti- 
mentalism  to  make  mention  of  the  life  or  limb  of  players, 
or  the  happiness  of  spectators.  At  last  the  rule-makers  have 
apparently  got  a  glimmering  of  the  idea  that  the  players  are 
the  main  thing,  not  the  ball.  All  the  ball  is  good  for  is  to  fur- 
nish a  use  for  the  players'  skill,  and  to  mark  their  success  in 
applying  their  abilities.  "With  this  idea  in  mind,  the  prob- 
lem is  to  make  a  game  which  the  players  can  put  themselves 
into  at  their  best,  and  out  of  which  they  can  get  the  maxi- 
mum enjoyment,  -without  too  much  brutalizing  of  themselves 
and  their  friends.  The  players  are  to  be  no  longer  merely 
concentrated  weight.  They  are  to  be  men  organized  just 
enough  to  get  the  best  use  of  their  bodies,  w'hile  keeping  them- 
selves safely  w^ithin  the  limits  where  mind  turns  the  scale 
against  matter. 

"The  comparison  won't  bear  too  close  examination,"  Gra- 
ham commented,  "but  in  our  financial  game  'the  interests  of 
capital'  take  the  place  of  advancing  the  ball.  However  hu- 
manitarian the  sentiments  of  individual  capitalists  may  be, 
capital  as  an  impersonal  interest  sets  the  pace,  not  capitalists 
as  persons  in  the  full  sense ;  and  they  must  reach  its  mark  or 
drop  out  of  the  struggle. 

"The  most  energetic  men  in  modem  society  have  turned 
the  game  of  life  into  the  capitalistic  game.  It  is  something 
as  though  the  game  of  baseball  had  gradually  been  perverted 
from  its  pre.«ent  character  to  a  method  of  manufacturing  balls 
and  bats,  and  the  change  had  gone  so  far  that  the  ma.ss  of  balls 
and  bats  in  the  world  was  steadily  increa.sing,  while  freedom 
to  use  balls  and  bats  was  constantly  becoming  more  re- 
stricted. 

220 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


"The  last  play  that  has  been  worked  out  in  the  capitalistic 
game  is  known  as  'concentration.'  It  raises  the  force  of  cap- 
ital to  its  highest  power,  but  at  the  same  time  it  shows  that 
unless  the  rules  are  changed  the  game  will  presently  devour 
the  players.  Here  is  where  the  livelier  sport  comes  in,  Mrs. 
Hartley,  and  you  are  probably  correct  in  your  suspicion  that 
your  husband  is  the  kind  of  man  who  is  bound  to  get  his 
share  of  it." 

The  signs  that  his  comparisons  had  not  been  wholly  suc- 
cessful kept  Graham  at  his  task. 

"I  doubt  if  it  is  possible  to  make  such  a  fine  distinction 
very  clear  in  words,  till  it  has  dawned  on  us  gradually,  after 
we  have  formed  the  habit  of  occupying  the  spectators'  seats, 
and  looking  down  on  life  as  disinterested  witnesses  of  the 
show.  The  gist  of  it  all,  as  I  have  said,  is  first  that  capital  is 
merely  accumulated  material ;  second,  its  proper  function  in 
the  economy  of  life  is  simply  and  solely  to  serve  as  a  means 
for  promoting  the  physical  and  spiritual  well-being  of  people ; 
third,  by  legal  fictions  that  have  turned  men's  heads,  this 
physical  stuff,  along  with  privileges  to  corner  more  stuff,  has 
been  made  into  a  superhuman  personality;  fourth,  this  arti- 
ficial person,  capital,  is  converting  the  masses  of  men  into 
drudges  to  drag  its  chariot,  and  the  rest  into  more  or  less 
glittering  followers  celebrating  its  ghoulish  triumph. 

Graham  must  have  abstracted  himself  from  his  surround- 
ings for  a  moment,  and  have  got  into  communication  with  a 
larger  audience,  for  he  seemed  to  be  shaping  a  passage  for  a 
speech  when  he  concluded : — 

''Modern  life  has  been  run  off  into  a  blind  alley  by  this 
personification  and  Caesarization  of  capital.  The  next  era 
of  democracy  has  got  to  be  filled  up  with  the  ascent  of  per- 
sonal interests  to  the  dominant  place,  and  the  reduction  of 
capital  to  its  normal  function  as  their  tool.  The  present  dem- 
ocratic problem  is  to  change  the  working  formula  of  life 
from  'The  interests  of  capital  require  this  and  that  of  the 
people,'  to  'The  interests  of  people  require  this  and  that  of 
capital.'  The  keenest  wits  in  the  world,  scattered  through  all 
classes  of  society,  have  been  making  out  the  signs  of  the 
times  in  this  same  sense.  The  vast  mass  of  human  interests 
that  have  been  crowded  out  of  place  by  capitalistic  interests, 
are  feeling  their  way  back  toward  combinations  that  will  re- 
store the  balance.     The  collision  of  principles  is  as  sure  as 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    RENEGADE 


fato,  aiul  it  forces  upon  modern  people  the  most  dillicult 
strategic  problems,  on  the  highest  level,  that  civilization  has 
ever  tackled.  It  will  not  be  long  before  the  finest  minds  in 
the  world  will  be  in  full  llight  of  competition  for  the  prizes 
of  leadership  in  solving  these  problems.  We  are  simply  making 
a  modest  beginning  in  our  campaign  for  'the  right  of  labor  to 
a  voice  in  the  control  of  capital.'  For  a  man  who  believes 
in  his  fellow  men,  there  is  more  satisfaction  in  planning  such 
a  campaign  than  in  managing  the  biggest  financial  syndicate 
on  earth." 

''Then  this  is  your  version  of  socialism,  Mr.  Graham?" 
pursued  Mrs.  Hartley. 

Graham's  effort  to  meet  the  question  humorously  stopped 
with  a  hesitating  laugh,  ar^d  he  continued  in  the  same  literal 
tone: — 

"There  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  the  socialists,  Mrs. 
Hartley,  but  I  am  not  one  of  them.  They  have  queered  the 
name  by  being  so  much  more  certain  about  the  solution  than 
about  the  problem  to  be  solved.  I  am  not  a  socialist,  in  the 
first  place,  because  I  am  sure  nobody  can  foresee  how  de- 
mocracy will  adjust  itself  in  its  next  form;  and  I  am  willing 
to  let  anybody  dream  about  that  who  pleases.  I  go  only  so 
far  as  to  say  that  there  are  democratic  principles  which  haven't 
their  proportion  of  influence  in  the  present  order  of  things, 
and  that  it  is  our  business  to  get  busy  making  them  plain, 
and  finding  out  how  to  rectify  the  ratio.  After  we  have  fought 
our  way  to  the  concession  of  so  much,  the  rest  is  going  to  be 
a  matter  of  progressive  adjustment  at  a  thousand  different 
points.  Society  is  not  likely  to  reform  itself  by  accepting  a 
pre.sent  of  somebody's  ready-made  garments." 

"My  conscience  has  been  troubling  me,"  Hartley  once 
more  joined  in,  with  a  suspicious  inflection,  "about  the  stag- 
ger at  a  confession  that  my  cousin  made  just  now.  It  started 
off  as  though  it  meant  to  amount  to  something,  but  it  hedged 
so  disgracefully  that  I  feel  bound  to  let  out  the  whole  truth. 
The  entire  affair,  Graham,  was  an  ambush  contrived  by  these 
women  to  make  you  fight  at  a  disadvantage.  Before  you  are 
led  in  any  further,  it  is  my  duty  to  tell  you  that  Miss  Kinzie 
is  not  only  a  minion  of  capital  on  general  principles,  but  that 
she  is  a  not  inconsiderable  fraction  of  the  Avery  Company 
itself." 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    RENEGADE 


Graham's  embarrassment  did  not  have  to  be  pretended; 
and  in  spite  of  Hester's  protests  that  the  mean  tactics  had  all 
been  on  the  side  of  the  defense,  he  declared  it  would  be  a  mer- 
ciful finish  if  he  could  be  shot  on  the  spot  for  conduct  unbe- 
coming an  officer  and  a  gentleman.  On  his  petition  for  suf- 
ficient respite  to  show  that  he  could  simulate  decent  behavior 
by  extraordinary  effort,  he  dropped  carelessly  into  his  part  in 
talk  that  was  safely  guiltless  of  seriousness,  until  Hartley  car- 
ried him  oft'  for  a  meeting  with  the  campaign  committee  be- 
fore leaving  for  the  evening  appointment. 

After  dressing  for  dinner  Elsie  wrote  to  her  parents : — 

"My  dearest  Dears: — 

"  It 's  all  off  with  the  philosophy.  I  've  seen  a  man.  Even  the  letter 
carrier  and  gas  inspector  are  fading  fancies.  He's  big  and  boyish,  and 
I  was  going  to  say  brilliant,  for  the  sake  of  another  b,  but  he  isn  't  that. 
T  can't  find  just  the  word  for  him,  but  perhaps  it's  assuring.  He  makes 
you  feel  as  though  you  wanted  to  roll  up  your  sleeves  and  help  get  the 
housework  out  of  the  way  all  at  once,  so  that  everybody  could  be  free  to 
enjoy  the  good  time  coming.  He  has  a  fair  chance  to  be  President  some 
day.  At  least  Chauning  Hartley  says  so,  unless  there  is  something  in  the 
Constitution  about  ages  that  will  keep    him  waiting  a  few  years. 

"He's  going  to  be  in  Chicago  in  a  week  or  two,  and  I  asked  him  to 
come  to  dinner  with  us  as  soon  as  I  get  back.  I  am  sure  you  will  like  him 
as  well  as  we  do.  Hester  said  not  to  mind  her  invitation;  she'd  come 
anyway;  only  to  be  sure  to  give  her  notice. 

* '  I  forgot  to  say  that  his  name  is  Graham ;  the  one  who  started  the 
strike.  He  said  he  knew  you,  Daddychen,  but  I  don 't  see  why  you  haven 't 
told  Mr.  Lyon  that  there  is  some  mistake,  and  that  he  ought  to  see  Mr. 
Graham  and  settle  it. 

"We  are  just  back  from  Brookline.  It  all  happened  at  the  Hartleys. 
On  the  way,  Hester  and  I  tried  to  decide  whether  we  should  be  Grace 
Darling,  or  the  Daughter  of  the  Regiment,  if  we  turned  out  to  be  the 
peacemakers. 

' '  There  is  a  whole  lot  of  philosophy  tangled  up  in  this  incident  too, 
but  I  don 't  know  whether  I  shall  ever  unravel  it.  Anyway,  the  atmosphere 
seems  less  stifled  than  it  did,  so  tlie  altitude  theory  must  be  wrong. 

"With  a  hundred  hurried  hugs, 

ELSIE." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


XIV 
THE   SENTIMENTALIST 

'While  one  of  the  chief  counts  in  his  theoretical  indictment 
of  the  system  was  that  it  was  mechanical  throughout,  from 
power  house  to  President's  office,  with  no  room  for  human 
sensibilities,  yet  after  his  feelings  had  been  moulded  into 
a  certain  form  for  a  generation,  he  could  not  rid  himself 
of  the  hauntings  of  a  thoroughly  inconsistent  loyalty  to 
the  Company." 


THE  Avery  shutdown  scheduled  for  six  weeks  had  extended 
into  late  summer. 

On  the  surface  neither  side  had  changed  its  position  nor 
improved  its  prospects. 

While  each  party  counted  on  depletion  of  the  other's 
resources,  as  the  most  reliable  feature  in  its  calculations, 
neither  had  for  a  moment  relaxed  its  efforts  to  fortify  itself 
for  aggressive  action. 

So  far  in  the  campaign  the  strikers  had  furnished  the  only 
surprise,  and  if  the  deliberations  of  the  Avery  directors  had 
been  made  public,  they  would  have  proved  that  it  was  a  de- 
velopment for  which  no  one  was  prepared.  It  was  the  un- 
expected moral  and  financial  strength  that  had  rallied  to  the 
support  of  the  strike. 

Everybody  whose  judgment  counted  for  anything  "on  the 
street"  had  said  that,  while  some  strikes  had  a  fighting  chance, 
this  one  had  gone  out  of  its  way  to  insure  failure.  It  had 
picked  out  one  of  the  strongest  antagonists  in  the  field,  and 
it  had  risked  a  fight  on  the  weakest  kind  of  issue. 

The  notion  that  labor  would  assess  itself  to  wage  war  for  a 
mere  abstract  idea  was  on  all  hands  jeered  at  as  too  absurd 
to  be  treated  soberly  outside  of  a  young  ladies'  reading  circle. 
If  a  foreman  had  discharged  a  drunken  loafer,  and  had  re- 
fused to  reinstate  him,  the  Company  might  have  to  defend 
itself  against  everybody  in  the  country  that  wore  a  union 
button ;  but  if  people  with  good  jobs  felt  able  to  indulge  in 
the  luxury  of  throwing  them  up  because  the  Company  re- 
fused to  adopt  their  particular  color  scheme  for  painting  the 

227 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


c-U)uds,  it  would  not  be  lout;-  before  they  would  find  them- 
selvo;^  left  to  pay  for  their  own  esthetics. 

Hut  the  ju-edietion;;  had  pervei-sely  miscarried.  Not  tlie 
enii>loyees  of  a  single  establishment  alone  had  listened  to  a 
radical  idea,  and  had  made  up  their  minds  to  fight  for  it,  but 
there  had  been  such  response  to  the  same  idea  the  country 
over  that  it  already  disturbed  the  plans  of  the  practical  poli- 
ticians in  state  and  national  machines. 

There  wa.«;  a  history  behind  the  movement.  It  was  not  the 
impulse  of  a  day.  It  was  the  heir  of  a  thousand  sporadic  and 
seemingly  ill-fated  theories  and  experiments.  Yet  if  w^e  could 
see  the  past  in  its  true  perepective  we  might  learn  that  no  peer 
of  the  impulse  now  at  work  had  ever  been  born  into  the  w^orld 
with  briefer  or  less  turbulent  travail.  We  might  discover  that 
progress  toward  a  conscious  program  of  economic  democracy 
had  been  merely  the  latest  demonstration  that  ordinary  men 
are  more  fully  equipjied  than  in  any  previous  period,  and 
that  whether  or  not  the  rich  are  growing  richer  and  the 
poor  poorer,  in  ability  to  draw  instruction  for  their  own  ad- 
vantage from  the  wisdom  of  the  world  the  footfaring  mil- 
lions have  at  least  been  closing  up  the  gap  between  them- 
selves and  the  careering  few. 

At  all  events  a  popular  movement  much  larger  than  or- 
ganized labor,  a  movement  that  temporarily  drew  organized 
labor  into  a  more  inclusive  ]iopular  program,  had  adopted  the 
idea  of  which  Graham  was  the  most  masterful  exponent.  The 
new  conviction  was  that  today,  unless  it  is  coupled  with 
economic  democrac}^  the  political  democracy  which  men  a 
century  ago  regarded  as  the  sufficient  gviarantee  of  equal 
freedom  is  little  more  than  a  toy  to  pacif}^  children. 

Whether  the  polic}^  had  given  new  life  to  this  old  idea,  or 
the  idea  had  created  the  policy,  the  movement  that  supported 
the  strike  seemed  further  to  endorse  with  equal  vigor  the  pe- 
culiar plan  of  attack.  The  Avery  strike  was  promoted  as  a 
test  case.  It  was  not  the  local  employees,  nor  the  men  in  the 
branch  establishments,  but  democracy  at  large,  against  the 
Company.  While  the  strikers  were  bearing  the  brunt  of  the 
fight,  a  vast  multitude  of  believers  in  the  principles  of  the 
struggle  were  perfecting  an  organization  which  adopted  the 
fight  as  a  popular  interest.  These  backers  insured  the  sup- 
plies, and  they  might  at  any  moment  for  strategic  reasons 
shift  the  battle  ground  to  any  other  industrial  centre. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


People  who  had  made  no  predictions,  who  had  simply 
watched  the  facts,  and  analyzed  their  meaning,  had  begun 
to  suspect  that  they  were  observing  the  birth  of  a  new  epoch. 
The  syndication  of  capital  was  forcing  the  sydication  of  peo- 
ple ;  but  as  is  always  the  case  with  a  popular  movement,  com- 
paratively few  of  the  supporters  of  the  new  impulse  clearly 
perceived  what  it  involved.  Although  they  idealized  their 
enterprise  in  a  hundred  variations  of  "democracy  against 
plutocracy,"  when  the  meaning  of  the  slogan  was  examined 
it  turned  out  that  the  majority  were  simply  struggling  against 
a  special  class  of  their  fellow  men.  The  few  who  stood  aside 
and  reflected  on  the  conflict  saw  that  it  was  more  than  a  strug- 
gle of  men  with  men.  The  demand  that  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men  should  be  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  control  of 
capital  implied  the  purpose,  which  would  later  become  con- 
scious, to  terminate  the  primacy  of  capital  as  an  impersonal 
interest,  and  to  absorb  and  distribute  it  as  a  proportional  in- 
cident of  all  personal  interests. 

In  the  beginning  David  Lyon  had  entertained  no  doubt 
that  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  starve  out  the  strike.  When 
six  weeks  had  not  sufficed,  it  was  a  mere  detail  to  decide  that 
a  little  further  patience  was  the  cheapest  and  surest  policy. 
But  two  facts  of  almost  equal  significance  had  compelled  sud- 
den reversal  of  plans.  Barclay  had  fonvarded  information 
which  he  had  carefully  verified,  that  a  rival  company  Avas 
already  incorj^orated  under  the  laws  of  New  Jersey.  Double 
the  Avery  capital  had  been  pledged.  It  was  controlled  by 
dangerously  strong  men,  who  saw  an  opportunity  to  capture 
the  Avery  market.  The  location  had  been  selected,  and  plans 
for  the  plant  accepted.  Construction  might  begin  at  any 
moment. 

The  other  fact  was  the  failure  of  the  Company's  agents  to 
get  ahead  in  securing  new  help.  Wherever  laborers  of  the 
class  needed  were  approached,  they  were  found  to  be  fully 
posted  about  the  strike,  and  either  in  active  sympathy  with 
it  or  sure  that  the  chances  were  too  much  against  them  if  they 
tried  to  better  themselves  by  becoming  strike-breakers.  Be- 
tween strikers  and  competitors  the  Company  was  rudely 
roused  from  its  composed  contentment  to  let  things  take  their 
time  coming  its  way.  Among  themselves  the  directors 
acknowledged  that  they  had  on  their  hands  a  struggle  for  ex- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


istence.  They  must  oitlior  begin  soon  to  fill  orders,  or  allow 
new  investors  to  ]nit  them  out  of  business. 

It  was  promptly  decided  to  start  up  the  plant  at  once;  to 
notify  the  tenants  of  the  Company's  houses  that  they  must 
either  immediately  report  for  work  or  vacate;  and  to  force 
the  ])lans  for  delivering  help  from  every  direction.  Parley 
and  preparation  were  past.    It  was  now  the  tug  of  war. 

So  far  as  the  strike-leaders  could  control,  personal  violence 
w.i?  ruled  out  of  the  campaign.  On  the  other  hand,  no  strike 
ever  commanded  a  more  elaborate  system  of  boycotting  for 
every  one,  from  the  milk  man  to  the  railroads,  who  had  any 
dealings  with  the  Company  or  the  new  men  it  might  employ. 

But  these  larger  factors  Avere  not  the  only  forces  which 
were  likely  to  share  in  turning  the  fortunes  of  war.  There 
were  subtler  influences,  some  of  them  too  trifling  to  be  re- 
ported to  the  Board,  that  were  making  the  moral  conditions 
which  would  presently  turn  the  scale.  One  of  these  trivial 
incidents,  which  had  an  accidental  bearing  on  the  course  of 
the  struggle,  was  Kissinger's  personal  and  domestic  problem. 

Soon  after  Graham's  return  he  had  arranged  a  second  meet- 
ing with  Kissinger,  and  then  a  third.  Tn  brief  the  result  was 
mutual  understanding  that  the  subject  must  be  dropped  till 
the  end  of  the  strike.  Kissinger  believed  in  Graham's  pro- 
gram. He  saw^  no  way  to  approach  the  ideals  which  for  him 
meant  justice  and  progress,  unless  people  of  like  mind  with 
himself  Avould  volunteer  to  work  in  the  right  direction.  But 
he  was  a  creature  of  routine  and  habit  and  tradition.  He  was 
distracted  by  a  double  duty.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life 
he  squarely  confronted  the  alternatives  of  principle  and  prece- 
dent. "When  he  had  abandoned  the  profession  selected  for 
him  by  his  parents,  the  choice  was  merely  between  two  poli- 
cies on  the  same  moral  level.  It  was  a  c^uestion  of  which 
would  turn  out  best  for  his  selfish  interests.  Besides,  he  was 
nearly  twenty-five  years  younger  then,  with  congenital  cau- 
tion not  yet  confirmed  by  a  quarter-century  of  stereotyped 
conformity  to  system.  While  one  of  the  chief  counts  in  his 
theoretical  indictment  of  the  system  was  that  it  was  mechan- 
ical throughout,  from  power  house  to  President's  office,  with 
no  room  for  human  sensibilities,  yet  after  his  feelings  had 
been  moulded  in  a  certain  form  for  a  generation  he  could  not 
rid  himself  of  the  hauntings  of  a  thoroughly  inconsistent  loy- 
alty to  the  Company.     Probably  closer  analysis  of  this  in- 


B  ETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


fliience  would  have  resolved  it  into  personal  loyalty  to  certain 
officers  of  the  company,  and  feelings  of  comradeship  toward 
some  of  his  associates.  At  all  events  his  feeling  was  obstinate 
that  he  had  obligations  to  his  position.  From  his  theoretical 
point  of  view  there  was  only  impertinence  and  fallacy  in  the 
compunctions  begotten  of  his  military  training;  yet  practi- 
cally they  were  irresistible.  He  could  not  reason  coldly  enough 
to  chase  out  of  his  conscience  the  accusation  that  leaving  the 
Company  now  would  be  desertion  in  the  face  of  the  enemy. 

On  the  other  side,  the  moral  value  of  such  an  idyllic  sense 
of  honor  arrested  Graham's  zeal  and  disarmed  his  reasoning. 
He  feared  that  a  man  who  remained  negatively  wrong  so 
conscientiously  might  be  worth  more  to  the  worfd  than  by 
doing  the  positive  right,  if  that  brought  him  under  convic- 
tion of  sin.  At  any  rate  he  was  not  vandal  enough  to  covet 
the  tarnished  glory  of  procuring  a  conversion  from  such 
wrong  to  such  right.  By  mutual  consent,  therefore,  the  whole 
matter  was  suspended  until  the  end  of  the  strike  should  open 
a  way  to  reconsider  the  subject  on  its  merits. 

By  a  still  more  intricate  process  Graham  found  himself 
halted  in  another  direction ;  and  he  was  not  altogether  sur- 
prised that  the  second  arrest  returned  to  his  thoughts  oftener 
and  more  vividly  than  the  fii'st.  Hester  and  Elsie  had  been 
at  the  Hartley's  when  he  called  after  his  circuit  was  finished, 
and  Elsie's  invitation  had  been  repeated.  Graham  men- 
tioned to  Kissinger  that  he  had  met  his  daughter  twice  in 
Boston,  but  he  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  inquire  about  her 
return.  He  even  had  time  a  little  later  to  reflect  that,  by  re- 
jecting his  proposition  outright,  Kissinger  might  have  cleared 
away  certain  limitations  of  his  freedom  which  were  now  as 
imperative  as  they  were  inconvenient. 

There  were  moments,  once  or  twice  there  were  hours,  when 
Mrs.  Kissinger's  extravagant  agitation  tended  to  provoke  her 
husband  to  the  opposite  extreme.  She  had  taken  instant  and 
feverish  alarm  at  the  possibilities  suggested  by  Elsie's  meeting 
with  Graham.  She  said  that  the  Hartleys,  and  perhaps  even 
Hester,  might  safely  risk  the  consequences  of  putting  them- 
selves on  an  equality  with  vulgar  people,  but  that  Elsie  could 
not  afford  such  compromising  indiscretions.  She  assumed 
that  nothing  could  be  said  in  Graham's  favor,  since  Chicago 
society  regarded  him  as  an  undesirable  citizen.    If  the  scru- 

231 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


pies  which  alone  infliieneed  her  husband  had  been  explained 
to  her.  she  would  have  welcomed  them  as  makeweights,  al- 
thouah  they  would  have  been  without  effect  upon  her  mind 
if  they  had  happened  to  interfere  with  her  estimates  of  social 
utility.  While  Mrs.  Kissinger  was  obliged  to  recognize  sev- 
eral grades  of  nobility  within  the  charmed  circle  which  she 
called  society,  all  outside  the  pale,  when  the  possibility  of  con- 
signment to  that  no-man's  land  was  associated  with  her  own 
family,  were  an  undifferentiated  rabble  of  ignobility.  Gra- 
ham was  by  choice  one  of  this  herd  of  the  impossible.  Be- 
yond the  fortunate  detail  that  some  of  them  used  a  little  more 
soap  than  others,  Mrs.  Kissinger  would  have  been  at  a  loss  to 
mention  offhand  marks  of  discrimination  which  would  dis- 
tinguish certain  of  this  unhallowed  multitude  as  less  inferior 
and  ineligible  than  the  rest. 

Mrs.  Kissinger  had  little  other  thought  of  the  strike  than 
that  it  was  merely  a  varied  form  of  essentially  the  same  van- 
dalism as  burglary  and  murder.  Yet  her  letters  to  Elsie  made 
no  reference  to  moral  taint  from  acquaintance  with  a  striker, 
but  simply  to  loss  of  social  rating.  This  seemed  to  her  so  cer- 
tain that  her  fears  w^ere  beyond  control.  She  dismissed  her 
usual  discretion.  Instead  of  disapproving  and  discouraging, 
she  repudiated,  and  forbade,  and  vetoed  and  prohibited  in 
so  many  different  keys,  that  a  less  spirited  girl  than  Elsie 
might  have  been  provoked  from  indifference  to  resolution. 
The  excess  of  her  mother's  energ\''  however,  was  sedative  in 
its  effects  upon  the  daughter,  for  it  stimulated  her  sense  of 
humor  rather  than  her  active  resistance.  She  assured  her 
mother  that  with  proportional  increase  of  insurance  on  the 
house,  and  a  platoon  of  mounted  police  to  patrol  the  block, 
with  a  private  detective  or  two  at  each  door  and  ^^-indow,  there 
would  be  no  extraordinary  risk  in  Graham's  call;  but  if  it 
would  still  overtax  the  family  neurology  she  would  forego  the 
experiment. 

Mrs.  Kissinger  was  not  affected  by  that  sort  of  irony,  and 
she  did  not  allows  the  march  of  domestic  events  to  drag.  Not 
many  hours  after  her  return  to  Chicago  Elsie  wrote : — 

"My  dear  Mr.  Graham: — 

' '  If  you  were  a  mere  individual,  it  would  be  hard  to  write  what  my 
recently  discovered  duty  dictates.  It  has  been  impressed  upon  me  that  you 
are  an  Institution.  As  the  case  has  been  presented  to  me,  Institutions  at 
best  have  no  souls.  At  worst  they  are  so  bad  that  people  who  lay  claim  to 
souls  must  not  associate  with  them.     In  my  mother's  mind  you  have  no 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


existence  as  a  person.  You  are  Eevolution.  You  are  Anarchy.  You  are 
Subversion  of  Society.  In  other  words,  you  are  no  better  in  her  eyes  than 
Samuel  Adams  or  Patrick  Henry  would  have  been  to  a  Tory  dame  of  '76. 
No  self-respecting,  and  particularly  no  Society-respecting  member  of  Soci- 
ety could  receive  such  an  Institution  into  her  house.  It  is  not  quite  clear 
to  me  why  one  should  expect  a  bad,  soulless  Institution  at  the  same  time 
to  be  sufficiently  an  individual  to  sympathize  with  the  embarrassment  of 
another  individual.  Without  trying  to  find  the  answer,  I  confess  that  I 
think  you  will  understand  my  mother's  wishes,  even  if  I  do  not  accept  her 
opinions.  I  will  not  try  to  smooth  over  this  frank  statement  of  the  reason 
for  not  giving  a  date  to  my  invitation. 

* '  You  may  get  the  impression  that  I  am  always  as  tractable,  and  there- 
fore a  model  daughter.  At  the  present  moment  I  am  so  subdued  that  I 
cannot  rest  under  even  that  imputation.  If  my  defense  had  been  stronger 
I  might  have  been  rebellious.  What  could  I  do  when  my  purpose  actually 
was  to  make  the  obnoxious  Institution  and  not  the  individual  the  guest  of 
honor?     I  am  not  a  pervert,  but  I  shall  continue  to  pay  attention. 

"Very  truly, 

"ELSIE  KISSINGER." 

And  Graham  answered : — 

"My  dear  Miss  Kissinger: — 

' '  Permit  me  to  present  my  respects  to  your  mother,  with  the  assurance 
that  while  I  have  no  appeal  from  her  decision,  its  justice  would  have  been 
less  doubtful  if  it  had  rested  on  disapproval  of  the  individual  rather  than 
of  the  Institution.  As  the  matter  stands,  the  problem  of  the  contents  of 
the  platter  between  Jack  Spratt  and  his  wife  was  easy  compared  with  my 
plight  between  Mrs.  Kissinger  and  her  daughter.  The  former  will  have 
none  of  the  Institution.  The  latter  graciously  intimates  that  she  will  have 
naught  else.  Unfortunately  for  me  a  non-detachable  union  between  what 
little  there  is  of  individual  and  Institution  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing much  headway  for  either;  but  their  only  hope  is  in  sticking  by  each 
other  to  the  end.  My  recollection  is  that  it  was  a  good  many  years  before 
the  like  of  the  Adamses  and  the  Henrys  got  the  privilege  of  treading  the 
hall  rugs  of  the  Tory  dames ;  but  the  world  moves  faster  in  these  days,  and 
if  the  Institution  shows  new  energy,  one  of  the  reasons  not  given  to  the 
public  will  be  the  motive  to  make  good  for  the  sake  of  breaking  down 
barriers  against  the  individual.  In  pursuing  its  mission  to  uplift  the 
world,  the  Institution  will  be  kept  mindful  by  the  individual  of  your 
obdurate  mother  and  your  partially  convinced  self.  It  would  be  only  fair 
play  if  the  Institution  should  a  little  later  find  a  way  to  speak  a  good 
word  for  the  individual. 

"Sadder,  wiser,  but  still  in  the  tourney, 

"JOHN  GRAHAM." 

Except  as  a  last  resort,  Mrs.  Kissinger  seldom  called  upon 
the  titular  head  of  the  household  for  help  in  making  the  social 
plans  of  the  family.  His  cue  was  to  accept  previously  settled 
programs,  and  to  bear  the  imputed  unrighteousness  of  failure 
to  arrive,  for  which  he  could  have  had  only  mystical  responsi- 
bility. In  this  instance  Mrs.  Kissinger  prejudged  the  situa- 
tion with  more  than  usual  finality,  and  she  put  corresponding 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


vijior  intd  hor  deniaiul  upon  her  husband  to  endorpe  her  de- 
cision. Kissinger  had  never  before  been  so  clearly  aware  of 
the  dilference  between  his  wife's  idea.^  and  his  own;  but  they 
happened  to  agree  on  the  inexpediency  of  social  relations  witli 
Graham  under  the  present  circumstances;  yet  Kissinger  was 
more  uncomfortable  in  this  agreement  with  his  wife  than  in 
most  of  their  differences  of  opinion.  Her  reasons  were  so 
ntilike  his  that  he  could  not  support  her  objections  to  Gra- 
ham without  sacrifice  of  principle,  unless  he  was  willing  to 
be  drawn  into  full  explanation.  lie  had  no  taste  for  the  sort 
of  profitless  arguments  which  always  grew  out  of  attempts  to 
arrive  at  understandings  with  his  wife  on  generalities.  He 
knew  that  it  would  do  no  good  to  discuss  Graham  and  Grar 
liamism  in  the  abstract  with  his  wife,  nor  was  he  ready  to  tell 
her  the  whole  story. 

Although  he  foresaw  that  silence  now  would  make  it  all  the 
harder  to  disarm  his  wife's  reproaches  if  he  should  ever  de- 
cide to  follow  his  convictions,  Kissinger  took  the  chance  of 
future  difhculty  for  the  sake  of  present  comfort;  and  instead 
of  expressing  himself  directly  he  resorted  as  usual  to  satirical 
thanks  for  the  compliment  implied  in  the  form  of  referring 
to  him  for  promotion  of  Mrs.  Kissinger's  social  prearrange- 
ments. 

The  eviction  order  operated  as  an  incubator  upon  Kissin- 
ger's half-born  resolutions.  He  knew  some  of  the  men  who 
would  have  to  leave  the  homes  they  had  occupied  for  years. 
Right  and  wrong,  as  he  saw  them,  could  not  have  been  more 
sharply  defined  than  in  the  contest  between  the  proper  rights 
of  these  men  and  their  treatment  by  the  arbitrary  power  of  the 
Company.  It  required  this  impersonation  of  his  theories  to  give 
Kissinger  the  necessary  impulse  for  action.  He  felt  that 
if  these  employees  were  driven  from  their  homes  he  could  not 
continue  to  serve  the  Company  wdthout  becoming  a  partner 
in  the  wrong.  When  the  evils  that  he  had  impotently 
brooded  over  were  thus  brought  to  his  own  charge,  and  not 
in  the  form  of  abstract  sentiment,  but  in  the  person  of  fellow 
employees,  men  whom  he  had  knoAvn  for  years,  and  whom 
he  believed  to  have  an  equity  in  the  Company  as  good  as  that 
of  stockholders  or  officers,  his  hesitation  at  last  passed  into  de- 
termined contempt  for  the  flimsiness  of  the  reasons  that  had 
so  long  secured  his  acquiescence.    He  decided  that  his  weak- 

234 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SENTIMENTALIST 


ness  had  not  been  chiefly  from  romantic  loyalty  to  his  em- 
ployers, nor  from  fear  of  the  risk  he  would  run  in  giving  up 
security  for  uncertainty.  He  found  that  in  the  last  resort 
neither  of  these  considerations  restrained  him  as  much  as  his 
distaste  for  the  disagreement  he  must  encounter  in  his  own 
home.  Summing  it  all  up,  the  best  he  could  say  for  himself 
was  that  he  had  been  too  easy-going  to  face  the  fuss  it  would 
cost  to  change  the  even  tenor  of  his  ways.  However  he  might 
shrink  from  the  process  of  withdrawing  from  his  position  in 
the  office,  and  much  as  he  dreaded  the  task  of  adapting  him- 
self to  new  requirements,  these  obstacles  together  deterred  him 
less  than  the  inevitable  awakening  of  the  dormant  disunity 
in  his  family.  Kissinger  was  not  made  of  stern  stuff.  His 
moral  courage  w^as  of  the  sort  that  preferred  suffering  the 
pains  of  self-suppression  to  outbreaking  conflict  even  in  self- 
defense.  Peace  was  more  to  him  than  progress.  Although 
goaded  finally  by  a  clear  sense  of  duty,  he  might  still  have 
shirked,  if  he  had  not  discovered  that  Elsie  was  on  his  side, 
and  that  Hester  was  likely  to  play  an  important  part  in 
neutralizing  Mrs.  Kissinger's  opposition. 


235 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  TRANSFORMATION 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


XV 

THE   TRANSFORMATION 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  world  never  possessed  an  absolutely 
infallible  automatic  consumer  of  human  rights  until  it 
invented  capitalism." 

WHY  Kissinger  was  moved  to  make  his  decision  known 
first  to  Logan  Lyon  rather  than  to  his  father  was  not 
altogether  clear  to  himself.  This  was  his  choice,  however,  and 
he  put  a  note  on  Lyon's  desk,  asking  for  a  half-hour's  talk 
before  he  left  the  office.  Kissinger  was  the  older,  and  his  con- 
tacts with  the  Company's  attorney  had  been  rare  except  in  the 
course  of  strict  routine.  Never  before  had  Kissinger  felt  im- 
pelled to  ask  the  confidence  of  the  son  about  a  matter  that 
primarily  concerned  the  father.  The  Secretary  was  familiar 
enough  with  the  imperious  manner  of  the  President  of  the 
Company.  He  had  often  seen  him  dictatorial  to  the  verge 
of  violence,  but  he  was  not  afraid  of  him.  He  knew  that  Mr. 
Lyon  was  as  just  in  his  intentions  as  he  was  dogmatic  in  his 
decisions,  and  that  he  was  gentle  in  spirit  even  when  immova- 
ble in  purpose. 

The  clue  to  Kissinger's  exceptional  indirection  was  less  in 
his  desire  to  avoid  his  superior's  wrath  than  in  his  habitual 
study  to  shield  him  from  annoyance.  He  did  not  rate  him- 
self as  essential  to  the  Company,  nor  even  to  Mr.  Lyon ;  yet 
he  knew  that  he  had  made  himself  sufficiently  useful  to  be 
valued,  and  that  his  defection  at  the  present  moment  would 
be  peculiarly  irritating.  He  knew  further  that  Mr.  Lyon  was 
likely  to  treat  any  brief  statement  which  he  might  make  as  a 
confession  of  disloyalty  if  not  treachery,  and  that  an  attempt 
to  argue  the  case  would  be  sharply  repulsed.  Lie  had  no  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  Logan  Lyon's  opinion  would  differ  from 
his  father's ;  but  on  the  other  hand  a  statement  to  the  son 
would  not  be  equally  embarrassed  by  personal  considerations. 
Kissinger  hoped  that  Lyon  would  prefer  to  make  such  a  re- 
port to  his  father  of  the  substance  of  their  talk  that  the  un- 
pleasantness of  the  necessary  interview  might  be  partially  re- 
lieved. 

In  his  private  office,  after  the  day's  business  was  closed, 
Logan  Lyon  waited  with  not  a  little  curiosity  for  an  explana- 

239 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


tion  of  Iho  Secretary's  iinu^jual  request.  Kissinger  had  care- 
fully thought  out  what  he  wanted  to  say,  and  he  tried  to  go 
>traight  to  the  point.  His  introduction  was  intended  to  be  as 
literal  as  a  Euclidean  theorem.  "I  have  decided  to  resign  my 
lH)sition,  Mr.  Lyon,  and  without  knowing  exactly  why,  I  felt 
that  it  might  be  better  to  tell  you  the  whole  story  before  I  had 
to  speak  to  your  father." 

Nothing  further  was  needed  to  convince  Lyon  that  the 
matter  was  important.  From  the  strictly  business  point  of 
view  such  an  incident  would  ordinarily  have  been  too  petty 
for  his  notice.  Hundreds  of  times  he  had  said  himself  or  had 
assented  to  others'  saying,  ''Men  are  plenty  enough."  As  the 
stock  phrase  rang  in  his  mind,  however,  like  an  automatic 
busy  signal  shutting  off  a  call,  he  as  quickly  answered  him- 
self with  the  equally  trite  proverb: — "but  so  are  children; 
yet  one  prefers  one's  own."  Lyon  knew  how  much  his  father 
valued  Kissinger,  and  how  hard  it  would  be  at  his  time  of 
life  to  be  comfortable  in  getting  similar  work  out  of  a  substi- 
tute. The  same  half-conscious  motive  that  had  sent  Kissinger 
to  liim  at  once  enlisted  his  interest  in  the  errand,  and  Avithout 
a  word  in  reply  his  manner  certified  that  he  would  be  attentive 
to  particulars. 

The  plunge  once  talcen,  Kissinger's  premeditated  program 
was  for  a  moment  disarranged.  Ingenuousness  was  "large" 
with  him,  as  the  phrenologists  used  to  say ;  while  tact  was  an 
acquired  form  rather  than  an  indwelling  spirit.  It  was  a  part 
of  his  equipment  only  so  far  as  it  had  been  drilled  into  him 
by  discipline.  It  did  not  spnng  from  his  disposition.  He 
was  too  conscientious  to  be  discreet.  He  was  apt  to  make  a 
clean  breast  of  the  worst,  with  consequent  buffetings  by  seas 
of  fussy  troubles  largely  of  his  own  creating. 

"I  may  as  well  say  frankly  to  start  with,  Mr.  Lyon,"  Kis- 
singer hurried  on,  as  if  anxious  to  put  burned  bridges  be- 
tween himself  and  retreat,  "this  strike  has  made  me  see  that 
I  don't  belong  here  any  longer.  My  heart  is  with  the  strike, 
not  with  the  Company.  I  must  give  you  the  further  details  that 
I  have  had  a  number  of  talks  with  Graham  himself  since  the 
strike  began,  and  I  believe  in  him.  He  is  on  the  track  of  the 
right  way  to  solve  labor  problems,  or  rather  to  make  them 
impossible.  He  has  made  me  a  proposition  that  I  can  accept 
when  the  time  comes,  and  it  will  give  me  a  chance  to  work  the 
rest  of  my  life  with  my  convictions  instead  of  against  them." 

240 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


Lyon's  professional  restraint  was  gone  in  a  flash,  and  he 
was  on  his  feet  glaring  at  Kissinger  as  though  at  the  next  move 
he  would  throttle  him.  That  Kissinger  held  secessionist  eco- 
nomic opinions  was  surprising  enough;  but  the  manner  of 
them,  as  evidenced  by  his  own  words,  was  intolerable.  "Do 
you  mean  to  tell  me  that  in  the  thick  of  this  fight  you  are 
deserting  to  Graham?" 

Kissinger  was  aware  in  an  instant  that  he  had  put  the 
wrong  foot  foremost ;  and  in  his  zeal  to  tell  the  whole  truth, 
as  it  made  both  for  and  against  himself,  he  went  farther  in 
extenuation  than  he  had  intended  before  his  blunder.  "In 
justice  to  myself,"  he  expostulated  eagerly,  "I  should  have 
started  by  saying  that  I  refused  to  consider  the  proposition  till 
after  the  strike  ends,  although  Graham's  plan  promises  me 
the  chance  of  my  life ;  and  I  am  reporting  my  decision  to  you, 
not  to  him.  In  justice  to  Graham  I  should  say  that  he  of- 
fered no  objection  to  putting  ofi^  the  proposition  till  it  would 
be  clear  of  all  entanglement  with  our  fight.  Not  a  word  has 
passed  between  us  about  this  particular  skirmish.  He  is  work- 
ing out  a  campaign  that  will  go  on,  whatever  comes  of  the 
Avery  Company  affair.  In  my  way  I  am  as  interested  as  he 
in  that  main  campaign.  My  sentiment  for  the  Company 
won't  let  me  go  to  the  other  side  though  till  the  point  of  at- 
tack has  changed ;  but  I  am  no  longer  able  to  carry  out  the 
Company's  orders,  and  it  is  up  to  me  to  state  the  facts  and  get 
an  honorable  discharge." 

Lyon  could  hardly  have  been  more  astonished  if  one  of  the 
calculating  machines  had  begun  to  give  out  theories  in  eco- 
nomics. He  had  never  suspected  that  this  plodding,  me- 
chanical, taciturn  man  had  a  sufficient  resei've  of  imagina- 
tion to  impeach  existing  conditions.  He  was  reassured,  how- 
ever, as  quickly  as  he  had  been  excited,  that  Kissinger's  be- 
havior toward  the  Company  had  been  strictly  correct;  and 
with  prompt  acknowledgment  that  he  was  satisfied  on  that 
score  he  settled  himself  to  hear  the  rest  of  the  story. 

As  Kissinger  w^ent  on  to  explain  the  meaning  of  his  de- 
cision, he  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  was  easier  to  talk  about 
than  he  had  expected.  Lyon  showed  no  further  sign  of  im- 
patience. Half  a  dozen  times  he  interrupted  with  a  direct 
question,  and  again  he  more  than  once  joined  in  making  the 
explanation  complete  by  indirectly  prompting: — "I'm  not 
quite  sure  that  I  get  your  meaning  there,  Mr.  Kissinger." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


If  ho  had  been  a  physician  Hstening  to  an  account  of  a 
patient's  symptoms  he  could  hardly  have  seemed  more  at- 
tentive to  every  ])articular.  Kissinger  had  no  reason  to  sus- 
pect that  the  attorney  had  any  tolerance  for  the  views  them- 
selves. He  interpreted  Lyon's  courtesy  rather  as  a  recogni- 
tion of  his  personal  loyalty  to  the  head  of  the  Company.  He 
put  all  the  stress  he  could  on  reiteration  that  he  neither  ex- 
pected nor  hoped  to  promote  his  selfish  interests  by  a  change 
of  position.  He  gave  the  Company  credit  for  the  best  treat- 
ment any  employee  could  demand  on  strict  business  princi- 
})les.  and  he  tried  to  make  it  plain  that  he  was  acting  not  on 
the  iiupulse  of  a  i)rivate  grievance,  but  because  he  believed  in 
an  idea  which  the  Company  could  not  accept ;  and  because  he 
had  to  choose  between  working  as  a  servant  of  the  Company 
to  defeat  his  own  beliefs,  and  claiming  his  freedom  to  do  his 
best  in  the  interest  of  his  faith. 

There  was  no  index  by  wdiich  Kissinger  could  detect  un- 
derneath Lyon's  impiissive  bearing,  after  the  fii*st  outburst,  a 
contradiction  between  the  official  and  the  man.  He  had  no 
means  of  knowing  that  Lyon  not  only  felt  the  force  of  the 
abstract  logic  of  his  position,  but  w^as  tempted  to  tell  him  so. 
During  a  long  pause,  after  Kissinger  seemed  to  have  fin- 
ished, Lyon  made  no  sign  of  reply  except  by  keeping  his  eyes 
fixed  on  Kissinger  as  though  they  might  penetrate  to  some 
meaning  that  had  not  come  through  the  ear.  Kissinger  in- 
ferred only  that  the  attorney  might  be  trying  to  decide  how 
to  report  the  case  in  a  way  that  would  least  disturb  his  father. 
At  most  he  might  be  considering  whether  the  incident  would 
be  closed  when  the  inconvenience  to  his  father  had  been  dis- 
counted; or  whether  it  should  be  regarded  as  a  symptom 
which  indicated  something  about  the  prospects  of  the  strike. 
When  Lyon  spoke  he  gave  Kissinger  the  impression  that  he 
was  concerned  merely  about  ending  the  matter  without  a 
scene. 

"If  you  were  in  my  father's  place,  Mr.  Kissinger,  what 
would  you  do  under  the  circumstances?" 

"In  your  father's  place,  and  with  his  views,"  Kissinger 
answered  promptly,  "of  course  there  is  but  one  thing  to  do. 
I  should  be  very  glad  though  if  he  felt  like  recognizing  my 
regard  for  him  personally,  and  my  attempts  to  fill  my  place 
during  all  these  years,  enough  so  that  he  could  say  good-bye 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


to  me  in  a  friendly  spirit,  and  tell  me  that  he  respected  my 
motives,  even  if  he  could  see  no  justification  for  my  opinions." 

"If  it  were  a  matter  between  you  and  my  father  only," 
Lyon  continued,  very  much  as  though  he  were  trying  to  find 
the  basis  for  a  trade,  "he  might  be  able  to  disregard  the  opin- 
ions, and  make  it  pos,sible  for  you  to  keep  your  position  in 
spite  of  them.  But  he  must  be  told  that  you  have  had  deal- 
ings with  Graham,  and  he  could  no  more  answer  to  the  Com- 
pany, if  he  kept  you  in  your  position,  than  a  bank  president 
could  who  allowed  a  subordinate  to  be  on  friendly  terms  with 
a  cracksman." 

It  was  Kissinger's  turn  to  be  excited.  Lyon  had  never  be- 
fore seen  him  bristle  with  indignation,  but  in  his  newly  de- 
clared independence  as  a  man  the  Secretary  had  shed  the 
deference  of  the  employee.  Yet  before  the  anger  had  found 
words,  Lyon's  show  of  surprise  pointed  to  misconstruction  of 
his  meaning,  and  Kissinger  merely  protested: — "I  hoped,  Mr. 
Lyon,  that  my  statement  went  far  enough  to  free  me  from  sus- 
picion of  playing  for  a  higher  bid." 

"I  gave  you  a  wrong  impression,  Mr.  Kissinger,"  Lyon  re- 
tracted heartily.  "I  meant  to  imply  nothing  of  that  sort.  I 
w^as  merely  thinking  of  my  father's  side  of  it,  and  that  he 
would  have  no  fear  of  treachery  from  you.  I  wish  for  his  sake 
you  had  either  kept  away  from  Graham,  or  had  not  thought 
it  necessary  to  give  me  that  part  of  the  details." 

Kissinger  saw  that  he  had  not  yet  made  his  position  clear 
to  Lyon,  and  the  fact  gave  him  his  first  definite  perception 
that  the  currency  of  his  idealism  was  subject  to  heavy  dis- 
count when  offered  as  a  medium  of  exchange  in  the  market. 
He  felt  as  though  he  had  undertaken  to  make  a  fourth  dimen- 
sion intelligible,  or  a  sixth  sense.  With  no  wavering  in  his  con- 
viction, but  with  glimmering  appreciation  of  the  difficul- 
ties of  bringing  it  within  the  range  of  practical  calculation, 
he  braced  himself  for  a  strenuous  attempt  to  make  his  ideal 
visible  if  not  convincing. 

"You  do  not  get  my  point  at  all,  Mr.  Lyon,  if  you  suppose 
that  any  arrangement  which  your  father  could  make  would 
tend  in  the  least  to  meet  my  needs.  No  mere  alteration  of  de- 
tails under  the  present  system  of  doing  business  would  go  to 
the  heart  of  the  matter.  There  is  no  place  for  me  in  business 
until  the  whole  system  is  revolutionized.  To  put  it  bluntly,  I 
am  just  admitting  to  myself  that  I  have  been  a  slave  for  years. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


but  it  was  a  slavery  to  a  regime  that  I  saw  no  way  to  change. 
It  gave  me  as  good  a  living  as  I  deseiTed,  but  it  denied  my 
right  to  a  man's  share  of  influence  on  the  business  in  wdiich 
he  earns  his  living.  I  should  probably  have  been  the  patient 
ox  to  the  end,  if  the  system  had  not  laid  on  me  the  last  straw 
in  the  shaj^e  of  its  order  to  be  its  agent  in  evicting  that  colony 
(•f  my  fellow  slaves.  I  know  some  of  those  men  who  have 
worked  in  the  shops  as  long  'di^  I  have  been  in  the  office.  Their 
work  has  been  as  necessary  in  its  way  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
Company  as  yours  or  your  father's.  It  is  simply  legalized 
fist-right  that  gives  the  Company  power  to  send  them  into 
exile.  They  have  a  moral  equity  in  their  homes  and  in  their 
jobs  which  has  as  clear  a  claim  at  the  bar  of  social  justice  as 
the  Company's  legal  equity  in  any  dollar  of  its  property.  By 
the  law's  decree  the  Company  has  an  arbitrary  ex  parte  power 
over  some  of  the  moral  rights  of  its  help.  It  is  as  wicked  to  use 
that  power  to  separate  those  men  from  their  homes  and  their 
work,  which  they  have  made  part  of  themselves,  as  it  would 
be  to  banish  them  from  their  wives  and  children.  I  shall  not 
be  a  man  till  I  am  free  to  work  for  all  I  am  worth  against  a 
system  that  tolerates  such  inhumanity.  I  want  liberty  to 
count  for  what  is  in  me  toward  vindicating  the  principle  that 
all  workers  are  partners.  I  don't  know  whether  American 
business  men  are  fools  or  hypocrites  when  they  get  hot  at  the 
Czar  for  not  letting  the  Russians  have  a  hand  in  their  own 
politics,  and  in  the  next  breath  get  hotter  at  Americans  for 
wanting  a  hand  in  their  own  business.  Politics  is  only  the 
[jacking  case  of  business  anyw^ay.  Why  are  rights  to  handle 
the  boxings  and  burlaps  w^orth  bothering  about  if  there  is  no 
right  to  the  goods  inside?  The  claim  of  every  man  who  works, 
to  a  share  in  the  ownership  and  control  of  his  work,  rests  at 
last  on  the  same  ground  as  the  claim  of  every  man  who  helps 
maintain  the  laws  to  a  share  in  making  and  enforcing  the 
laws.  Democracy  in  government  is  only  a  blind  unless  it  is 
carried  out  to  the  logical  result  of  democracy  in  business.  You 
might  just  as  well  attempt  to  divide  the  management  of  trans- 
portation between  a  democracy  for  roadbeds  and  an  oligarchy 
for  rolling  stock.  There  is  no  stopping  place  for  democracy 
till  every  full  grown  man  has  a  man's  full  share  in  managing 
all  the  world's  arrangements  that  touch  his  interests.  The 
only  power  that  one  man  can  have  at  last  over  another  man 
in  a  democracy  is  the  power  either  of  the  expert  or  of  the 

244 


BETV/EEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


official.  In  either  case,  society's  judgment  of  its  own  welfare, 
not  the  individual's  self-interest,  must  make  the  rules  to  gov- 
ern expert  or  official  in  the  use  of  his  position.  Democracy  is 
an  insult  to  human  intelligence  unless  it  means  progressive 
elimination  of  all  arbitrary  power  of  one  man_  over  another. 
Our  present  system  of  property  is  an  artificial  invention  that 
delivers  the  many  into  the  hands  of  the  few.  A  righteous  sys- 
tem of  property  will  rest  on  work  only,  and  one  kind  of  work 
will  create  as  valid  claim  as  another  to  stock  in  the  world's 
opportunities.  Our  present  business  principles  assume  that 
we  have  gone  as  far  as  we  can  toward  securing  human  rights. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  world  never  possessed  an  absolutely 
infallible  automatic  consumer  of  human  rights  until  it  in- 
vented capitalism.  Our  capitalistic  system  is  a  siphon  that 
sucks  up  men's  rights  by  a  law  of  accelerated  motion.  Simply 
give  it  time  and  let  it  alone  and  it  would  end  before  very  long 
in  having  every  cubic  inch  of  land,  sea,  and  sky  bonded  to  a 
clique  of  financiers,  and  then  the  terms  under  which  the  rest 
of  the  human  race  might  be  permitted  to  stay  on  the  earth 
could  be  dictated  in  the  licenses  granted  at  their  own  price 
by  the  syndicate.  Because  human  wills  in  the  last  resort  are 
stronger  than  habits,  and  sentiments,  and  logic  and  laws,  this 
thing"  won't  work  out.  Men  w411  stand  it  up  to  some  limit  that 
no  one  can  predict.  Then  they  will  rebel.  Whether  they 
have  a  theory  thought  through  by  that  time  to  expose  the 
fallacy  of  this  capitalistic  program  or  not,  they  will  some  day 
rise  up  in  their  might  and  declare  that  the  earth  shall  belong 
to  men,  and  capital  shall  be  reduced  to  its  place  in  the  ranks 
of  tools.  For  years  these  things  have  been  brooding  in  my 
mind  with  no  prospect  of  anything  practical  hatching  from 
them.  I  see  now  where  I  can  keep  on  earning  a  living,  and  at 
the  same  time  make  my  work  count  toward  the  future  free- 
dom, instead  of  forging  more  links  in  the  chains  of  slavery. 
It's  a  sorry  figure  one  cuts  at  best,  obliged  to  confess  that  one 
has  lived  nearly  half  a  century  without  ever  daring  to  be 
quite  one's  self.  The  other  side  of  it  is  that  most  of  the  human 
race  are  not  yet  far  enough  along  to  suspect  their  humiliation. 
It  is  something  to  arrive  at  the  feeling  that  one  has  a  soul  and 
that  it  has  a  right  to  assert  itself.  For  me  the  Avery  Company 
means  the  wrong  side  of  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  capi- 
talism and  democracy.  I  should  like  nothing  better  than  to 
work  with  the  men  in  the  Company,  if  they  could  transfer 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


their  iilU^iiianco  to  the  human  side.  As  that  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 1  shall  uot  my  tn>t  taste  of  real  freedom  when  I  am  fully 
enlisted  in  the  other  eani})." 

Neither  Kissinger's  resolution  alone  nor  the  profession  of 
faith  behind  it  would  have  been  likely  to  impress  on  Lyon  the 
feeling  of  a  new  sensation.  The  apparent  metamorphosis  of 
this  monosyllabic  man,  however,  this  prosaic  pursuer  of  rou- 
tine, into  a  rhetorician  and  a  rhapsodizer  and  a  revolutionist, 
was  a  p.-^ycholooical  ])aradox  at  least,  whether  it  might  be 
worth  notice  otherwise  or  not.  As  he  listened,  Lyon  had 
found  himself  wondering  whether  something  of  the  same  sort 
may  have  been  the  basis  of  fact  that  had  passed  into  the  New 
Testament  tradition  of  the  gift  of  tongues.  Not  what  Kissin- 
ger believed,  but  the  Avay  he  believed  it,  might  have  made  a 
less  open  mind  than  Lyon's  speculate  whether  such  amiable 
faith  could  be  altogether  out  of  tune  with  reality.  While 
Lyon  noted  every  word  of  Kissinger's  monolgiie,  Barclay  and 
Dexter  came  back  to  his  thoughts,  ^^•ith  their  fighting  version 
of  life.  Then  Halleck,  and  Graham,  and  Edgerly  and  Hester 
Kinzie  seemed  to  chord  in  with  Kissinger's  voice.  Lyon  hu- 
mored the  conceit  that  the  confusion  of  notes  was  a  sort  of 
tone-rebus ;  a  parody  of  the  problem  that  for  months  had  been 
haunting  the  background  of  his  reflections, — Is  conflict 
the  main  undercurrent  of  life  or  is  it  harmony? 

Before  Kissinger  had  started  on  this  peroration  Lyon  had 
set  down  the  business  side  of  the  episode  as  a  closed  incident. 
He  did  not  see  at  once  how  he  could  reduce  its  annoying  ef- 
fects upon  his  father  to  a  minimum,  but  he  had  all  night  for 
that  problem,  and  with  these  tw^o  factors  in  the  case  tempo- 
rarily disposed  of  he  gave  himself  license  to  improve  the  oc- 
ca.sion  for  giving  rein  to  his  investigating  interest,  and  allow- 
ing himself  to  dally  a  while  with  Kissinger  on  the  plane  of 
purely  abstract  theory. 

It  was  not  merely  trifling,  however,  either  with  Kissinger 
or  with  liimself.  The  strike  so  far  had  confirmed  Lyon  in 
the  opinions  which  had  been  his  platform  before  it  was  de- 
clared. He  had  seen  no  outlook  for  an  alternative.  At  the 
same  time  the  ''unavailable"  in  his  opinions  had  gradually 
a.ssumed  the  character  of  a  factor  that  possibly  might  have  to 
be  reckoned  with.  If  he  had  taken  strict  account  of  his  im- 
pressions after  the  season's  costly  experience,  he  would  have 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


discovered  a  larger  element  of  fear,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  truer 
to  say  of  suspicion,  that  the  factors  which  he  had  dismissed 
as  "unavailable"  were  the  very  elements  in  the  situation  which 
changing  circumstances  were  forcing  to  the  front.  It  might 
be  possible  that  the  chief  business  problem  of  our  era  was  ad- 
justment to  these  same  "unavailable"  factors.  He  had  not  ex- 
pected light  on  the  problem  from  Kissinger,  but  the  thought 
that  he  might  be  symptomatic,  that  he  might  be  a  sign  of  so- 
cial currents  which  had  not  been  rated  at  their  full  force, 
made  it  worth  while  to  go  back  of  his  individual  connection 
with  the  Company,  and  to  treat  him  as  an  index  of  general 
conditions.  When  he  spoke,  Lyon  gave  Kissinger  the  im- 
pression that  he  had  checked  off  his  affair  as  settled,  and  was 
opening  another  question : — 

"I  shall  have  to  consider,"  Lyon  said  reflectively,  "before  I 
am  sure  of  the  best  way  to  present  this  to  my  father.  Leave 
word  with  Hichborn  that  you  will  not  be  at  the  office  for  a 
day  or  two  and  that  he  is  to  report  in  your  place.  I  will  advise 
you  further  tomorrow.  But  for  my  own  curiosity,  Mr.  Kis- 
singer, I  w^ant  to  ask  whether  you  really  think  these  fine  sen- 
timents can  ever  have  any  practical  application  to  business. 
Or  in  making  this  new  departure,  do  you  think  of  yourself 
as  getting  out  of  business  and  taking  up  the  employment  of 
an  experimenter  in  philanthropy?" 

Kissinger  was  not  at  all  disturbed  by  the  challenge.  Indeed 
it  was  a  relief  for  him  to  dismiss  the  practical  aspects  of  the 
subject  and  to  pass  into  the  realm  of  theory.  Here  he  felt  him- 
self at  home.  No  one  had  a  right  to  prescribe  his  thoughts. 
His  judgment  was  as  free  as  another's.  There  was  something 
like  compensation  for  his  subordinate  rank  as  a  business  fac- 
tor, in  having  opinions  that  would  be  ridiculed  on  the  street; 
in  feeling  sure  that  he  was  right  and  the  street  wrong;  and  in 
believing  that  time  would  justify  his  estimate  of  things.  It 
gave  a  sense  of  superiority  to  people  limited  by  capitalistic 
standards,  like  that  which  a  civilized  man  would  feel  toward 
savages,  even  if  he  were  their  prisoner.  Beyond  this,  in  meet- 
ing Lyon  on  the  level  of  pure  theory,  he  felt  that  he  was  free 
of  obligations  that  had  been  heavy  ballast  in  their  previous 
relations.  He  no  longer  felt  responsible  either  for  justification 
or  defense  or  persuasion.  As  far  as  he  knew,  Lyon  was  im- 
mune to  his  type  of  democratic  sympathies,  and  talking  with 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     TRANSFORMATION 


liiin  alioul  Iheni  would  l)e  like  (wo  enemies  iiiuler  a  flap;  of 
truce  (liscu.'^sin^  the  ultiniaiuin  which  neither  expected  to 
chanu'c  exccjU  by  resuming;  hostilities.  Kissinger  met  T^yon's 
<luestion,  therefore,  in  a  quite  different  attitude  from  that  in 
which  he  had  beQ;ini  the  interv'iew.  The  relations  of  the  two 
men  were  altered.  Kissinger  dropped  into  the  casual  man-to- 
man tone  of  a  confidential  communication  affected  by  no 
other  motive  than  sheer  interest  in  the  ideas;  and  he  was 
conscious  that  T.yon  on  the  other  hand  waived  his  official  po- 
sition and  accepted  the  neutral  situation. 

''If  we  were  navigating  a  ship,  j\Ir.  Lyon/'  Kissinger  began, 
ill  an  indirect  style  that  sustained  Lyon's  surprise,  "and  if  we 
found  that  our  compass  Avas  disturbed  by  some  force  that  we 
couldn't  calculate,  would  we  call  it  practical  navigation  to 
reckon  the  best  we  could  with  the  causes  of  the  deviations?" 

''I  see  what  vou  mean,"  assented  Lyon,  "but  can  you  make 
out  a  parallel?" 

"Perhaps  not  exactly"  returned  Kissinger,  in  a  tentative 
tone,  as  though  he  were  revising  a  hasty  expression,  "still  I 
think  the  two  cases  are  at  bottom  alike.  The  current  phrase 
'the  social  unrest,'  stands  for  a  lot  of  ugly  facts.  Whether  we 
have  any  theories  to  explain  them  or  not,  they  must  l)e 
counted  with.  As  I  see  it,  a  policy  of  trying  to  find  out  how- 
to  cancel  as  much  of  the  social  unrest  as  possible  out  of  the 
business  situation  would  no  more  be  changing  business  into 
charity  than  seamanship  is  turned  into  philanthropy  by  al- 
lowing for  the  variations  of  the  compass." 

"That's  a  catchy  way  to  put  it,"  returned  Lyon,  with  an 
incredulous  shrug,  "but  it's  a  weak  prop  for  a  revolution.  So 
far  as  calculating  variations  is  concerned,  business  has  to 
correct  more  cranky  compasses  every  hour  in  the  day  than 
sailormen  ever  dream  of.  What  you  really  have  to  go  on 
when  you  talk  about  correcting  errors  is  an  impossible  ambi- 
tion to  correct  facts.  The  world  is  full  of  infinitely  unequal 
people.  Business  is  what  it  has  to  be  as  a  result  of  these  ine- 
qualities. Your  'social  unrest'  simmers  down  to  a  demand  for 
tearing  businesi?  to  pieces  and  starting  from  the  bottom  on  the 
assumption  that  all  these  unequal  people  are  equal." 

Whenever  Kissinger  had  tried  to  express  his  social  ideas 
before,  it  had  either  been  a  solitary  exercise  of  his  imagination, 
or  in  the  company  of  kindred  spirits  w^hose  minds  were  made 
up  in  advance,  and  who  held  one  another  to  strict  account  for 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


opinions  only  when  they  had  something  decent  to  say  of  ex- 
isting institutions.  In  such  an  atmosphere  a  radicahsm  that 
had  very  little  to  rest  upon  might  pass  as  plausible.  It  was  a 
different  matter  to  save  the  same  notions  from  seeming  silly 
when  the  presumption  was  reversed.  Kissinger  was  not  san- 
guine enough  to  suppose  that  Lyon  was  open  to  conviction, 
but  he  was  anxious  to  show  the  attorney  for  capitalism  that 
something  remained  to  be  said  for  democracy.  Although  he 
could  not  regard  Lyon  as  a  promising  subject  for  missionary 
effort,  yet  a  certain  proselyting  fervor  began  to  prompt  Kis- 
singer's side  of  the  discussion.  The  new  problem  of  making 
his  theories  presentable  to  an  unbeliever  cautioned  him  back 
into  a  prudence  of  speech  which  was  in  equal  contrast  with 
his  novel  outburst  of  zeal  and  the  usual  staccato  common- 
placeness  of  his  business  utterance.  In  fact,  not  his  words 
only  but  his  ideas  seemed  almost  as  strange  to  himself  as  he 
thought  they  must  sound  to  Lyon. 

"If  you  really  think  the  democratic  movement  means  de- 
mand that  unequals  shall  be  equal,"  began  Kissinger  experi- 
mentally, "it  is  no  wonder  Graham  looks  impossible  to  you, 
and  you  set  down  the  strike  as  a  trifling  with  fate.  Perhaps  it 
is  work  enough  for  one  era  in  civilization  to  clear  a  fraction  of 
the  confusion  out  of  our  notions  of  human  equality  and 
inequality. 

"Let  me  take  myself  as  a  sample  democrat.  I  suppose  I 
understand  what  is  going  on  in  the  minds  of  men  farther 
along  down  in  the  economic  scale  than  you  do.  I  am  nearer 
to  them,  and  see  things  from  nearer  their  standpoint.  Judg- 
ing partly  from  what  I  meet  in  them  and  more  from  what  I 
find  it  myself,  you  put  a  completely  wrong  construction  on 
the  underlying  democratic  motive.  I  know  that  your  father 
would  be  a  more  valuable  factor  in  business  than  I  could  be, 
under  any  s^^stem  that  approached  the  present  complexity. 
His  judgment  is  reliable  where  I  wouldn't  trust  my  own. 
Without  a  brain  like  his  at  the  centre,  a  big  business  would 
soon  begin  to  go  hard  for  all  concerned ;  and  that  would  be 
true,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  in  any  kind  of  society  that  might  take 
the  place  of  the  present  order. 

"On  the  other  hand,  your  father  would  be  worth  less  than  I 
am  to  the  business  if  he  had  to  do  m}^  work,  and  I  suppose 
there  are  easily  a  thousand  men  in  the  employ  of  the  Com- 
pany in  ordinary  times  who  would  discount  either  of  us  if 

249 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


we  had  to  work  along  side  of  tliciii  at  their  own  jobs.  AVhether 
under  any  circumstances  all  men  could  ever  learn  to  do  the 
same  thing  equally  well  doesn't  seem  to  me  however  a  prac- 
tical question.  There  is  another  sense  in  which  all  men  are 
equal,  and  that  sense  is  the  mainspring  of  democracy.  We 
are  all  equal  in  our  intere.st  in  being  ourselves,  with  freedom 
from  control  by  other  men  through  force,  or  fear,  or  fraud,  or 
privilege,  or  anything  else  except  reason  pure  and  simple." 

The  saving  clause  "not  available"  came  to  Lyon's  relief  in 
full  strength ;  and  without  a  quiver  of  distrust  that  at  least 
so  much  ground  was  secure,  he  promptly  protes^ted  this  draft 
on  his  a.ssent.  "How  often  would  an  army  get  through  a  war 
on  the  winning  side  if  it  was  run  on  a  democratic  plan?" 

Kissinger's  imagination  was  warming  with  the  discus- 
sion, and  he  began  to  glow  w4th  the  excitement  of  real  scout- 
ing service  for  democracy.  He  felt  more  sure  of  his  insight 
into  the  weakness  of  the  enemy's  position  than  of  his  own 
ability  to  make  successful  dashes  to  take  advantage  of  the 
openings;  yet  he  was  gaining  confidence  that  he  could  keep 
Lyon  from  uncovering  anything  untenable  in  his  own  de- 
fenses. At  the  same  time  this  access  of  the  militant  spirit  did 
not  mislead  Kissinger  into  accepting  the  implications  of 
Lyon's  martial  analogy.  The  reply  was  on  his  tongue's  end 
instantly,  and  at  the  same  time  he  made  the  mental  note  that 
meeting  this  form  of  attack  had  given  him  a  new  group  of 
clues  to  the  conditions  of  the  campaign.  Without  hesitating 
long  enough  to  give  a  sign  that  the  answer  had  to  be  consid- 
ered, he  persisted: — 

'"But  there  you're  falling  back  on  one  of  the  false  premises 
that  vitiate  the  whole  capitalistic  calculation.  Life  isn't  all 
war,  and  it  isn't  even  all  business.  Life  is  a  process  of  getting 
a  fair  field  for  the  promotion  of  all  human  interests  in  the  pro- 
portion of  their  merit.  War  and  business  are  tools  that  people 
have  to  use  in  the  course  of  this  process.  We  have  to  learn  how 
to  get  the  most  work  out  of  all  the  tools  of  life,  business  and 
war  among  the  rest.  To  the  extent  that  we  are  dependent  on 
our  tools,  we  have  to  submit  to  the  dictation  of  the  conditions 
in  which  they  are  capable  of  their  best  work.  This  doesn't 
prove  that  we  are  doomed  to  turn  life  into  a  slavery  to  our 
tools.    That  is  reversing  the  relation  of  means  and  end." 

"I'm  trying  to  follow^  you  clear  beyond  my  depth,"  inter- 
rupted Lyon.     "How  are  you  going  to  adapt  yourself  to  the 

250 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


necessity  of  organization  in  business,  which  means  responsi- 
biUty  and  authority  in  somebody,  and  subordination  and 
obedience  in  somebody  else,  if  you  are  going  to  get  the  tool 
value  of  business;  and  at  the  same  time  have  employer  and 
employee  equal  ?" 

"In  the  same  way  that  we  have  a  constitution  and  laws  of 
the  United  States  and  a  President  to  enforce  them,  yet  w^hen 
it  comes  to  individual  rights  every  man  in  the  country  has  as 
sure  a  title  to  his  share  of  them  as  the  President  himself.  It 
is  no  more  decreed  by  the  nature  of  things  that  a  business 
must  be  a  military  monarchy  because  it  needs  organization, 
than  it  is  that  the  United  States  must  be  an  oriental  despotism 
because  we  need  a  Chief  Magistrate.  It  all  turns  on  what 
I  hadn't  finished  saying  about  equality.  I  suppose  there  are 
people  in  the  world  wdio  believe  that  a  thousand  babies  born 
the  same  day,  and  given  exactly  the  same  chance  in  life, 
would  turn  out  precisely  alike  in  their  character  and  ability. 
Some  people  may  believe  that  each  of  those  babies  might  learn 
to  do  whatever  the  others  could,  and  that  there  would  be  no 
good  reason  why  one  should  count  as  a  more  important  mem- 
ber of  society  than  another.  Without  going  quite  that  length, 
I  believe  men  are  more  equally  endowed  by  nature  than  our 
social  conditions  give  them  a  chance  to  show,  and  that  de- 
mocracy is  bound  to  reduce  the  proportions  of  this  needless 
inequality.  I  understand  Graham  to  believe  the  same  thing, 
although  I  imagine  he  would  stop  before  I  would  in  estimat- 
ing the  probable  limit  of  equalization.  But  whatever  turns 
out  to  be  the  truth  on  this  point,  it  isn't  what  I  am  at  present 
talking  about.  Suppose  w^e  assume  that  Number  17  in  the 
coal-yard  gang  and  the  President  of  the  Company  rank  pre- 
cisely in  accordance  with  the  actual  inequalities  of  their 
makeup,  and  that,  in  spite  of  everything  men  may  some  day 
learn  to  do,  the  remaining  differences  between  men  will  al- 
ways cover  a  scale  as  wide  as  those  extremes.  My  point  is 
that  Number  17  in  the  coal-yard  gang  is  equal  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Company  in  right  to  work  out  his  own  salvation 
unhandicapped  by  the  ownership  of  any  other  human  being." 

''If  you  mean  to  join  in  with  the  socialistic  rant  about  one 
man  owning  another  in  our  day,"  interposed  Lyon,  with 
symptoms  that  his  tolerance  was  evaporating,  "you  are  out  of 
the  region  where  discussion  pays  for  the  breath  it  wastes. 
Since  the  era  of  free  contract  came  in,  Number  17  in  the  coal- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     TRANSFORMATION 


yard  fj:ang  has  been  }L<  free  as  the  President  of  the  Company, 
(^r  any  one  else,  to  go  where  he  pleased  and  get  a  better  job. 
When  people  begin  to  talk  about  one  man  owning  another 
under  our  modern  laws,  it  shows  me  that  they  have  thrown  up 
their  attempts  to  sustain  their  claims  with  facts,  and  have 
taken  their  last  stand  on  an  appeal  to  unreasoning  feeling." 

''You  simply  play  into  my  hand  when  you  put  it  that  way," 
retorted  Kissinger,  almost  dizzy  with  the  delight  of  uncon- 
strained freedom  of  debate  with  Capitalism  as  he  personified 
it  in  Lyon.  ''When  people  of  your  class  resort  to  the  pretense 
that  a  figure  of  .■speech  can  have  only  one  literal  meaning,  and 
try  to  hush  up  analysis  of  the  social  problems  by  the  platitude 
that  this  literal  meaning  has  no  existence  in  modem  life,  it 
shows  me  that  they  have  run  short  of  ammimition  and  are  us- 
ing a  'thus  saith  the  Lord'  of  their  own  fixing  up  as  the  easiest 
way  to  cover  their  retreat.  If  Number  17  in  the  coal-yard  gang 
and  the  President  of  the  Company  were  both  thrown  on  the 
resources  that  they  individually  command  under  our  laws, 
regardless  of  the  good-will  of  any  other  human  being,  to  find 
a  new  job,  the  President  of  the  Company  would  have  several 
million  times  the  freedom  of  Number  17  to  insure  himself 
against  star\'ation.  Not  in  the  literal  legal  sense,  but  in  effect, 
one  man  owns  another  to  just  the  extent  that  he  can  control 
him.  On  our  merits  as  plain  human  beings  each  of  us 
owes  ."something  to  all  the  rest,  because  each  of  us  affects  the 
ability  of  all  the  rest  to  make  headway  in  working  out  the 
problem  of  life.  But  our  system  of  property  gives  to  the  em- 
ploying class  an  artificial  means  of  commanding  the  con- 
duct of  the  employed  class.  The  'social  unrest'  that  I  was 
talking  about  is  not  at  bottom  a  kick  against  the  legitimate 
claims  of  man  upon  man.  It  is  not  a  demand  for  a  system  that 
shall  rob  some  in  order  to  give  charity  to  others.  Not  a  very  big 
fraction  of  it  is  a  claim  that  all  workers  shall  have  the  same 
wage.  It  is  in  a  word  demand  for  an  honest  attempt  to  put 
our  property  sy.stem  on  a  basis  that  will  give  each  man  just 
the  influence  over  other  men  which  belongs  to  him  by  virtue 
of  his  .'share  in  human  work." 

Lyon  had  rather  rapidly  recovered  his  philosophic  temper, 
and  while  he  felt  that  they  were  spinning  an  exceptionally 
fine  thread  of  abstract  theory,  he  was  in  a  frame  of  mind  to 
give  Kissinger  all  the  stimulus  po.=«sible,  to  see  where  the  argu- 
ment would  end.    He  had  a  feeling  that,  whether  Kissinger 

252 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


was  within  sight  of  the  facts  or  not,  something  further  might 
be  not  far  out  of  reach  about  certain  things  that  had  been 
referred  to  in  the  talk,  and  he  turned  the  discussion  back  to 
an  earher  point  of  departure. 

"Suppose  we  grant  all  this  for  the  sake  of  arg-ument,  Mr. 
Kissinger,"  Lyon  conceded,  "we  have  not  gone  very  far  to- 
ward showing  that  it  can  ever  have  a  practical  application." 

"That  was  what  I  was  feeling  after  with  my  illustration  of 
the  disturbance  of  the  compass,"  responded  Kissinger. 

He  did  not  know  it,  but  he  was  facing  the  same  perplexity 
which  sooner  or  later  confronts  social  theorists  of  the  widest 
outlook.  After  they  have  analyzed  things  as  they  are,  and 
have  made  up  their  minds  about  the  emotional  attitude  most 
favorable  to  promotion  of  things  as  they  ought  to  be,  they  are 
more  or  less  aware  that  they  have  shot  their  bolt.  They  are 
helpless  before  the  question.  What  acts  that  we  or  anyone  else 
can  perform  would  bring  people  into  that  emotional  attitude? 
His  feelings,  rather  than  a  strict  process  of  scientific  analysis, 
had  brought  Kissinger  into  contact  with  one  of  the  profound- 
est  of  social  facts, — the  debt  of  every  man  to  the  work  of  other 
men,  and  the  cooperative  character  of  all  human  effort.  In- 
stead of  putting  him  in  closer  touch  with  practical  men,  his 
perception  that  every  business,  and  life  in  general,  is  a  part- 
nership in  operation,  and  implies  corresponding  partnership 
in  control,  virtually  insulated  him  from  actual  affairs  and 
ordinary  currents  of  thought.  Like  thousands  of  wiser  social 
philosophers,  he  was  facing  the  experience  of  discerning  a 
truth  with  utter  distinctness,  while  helpless  to  make  other 
people  either  see  the  truth  or  act  as  though  it  were  true. 

Exhilaration  had  been  Kissinger's  first  reaction  in  this  ini- 
tial experience  of  an  apostolate  to  the  gentiles ;  yet  his  judg- 
ment was  sobered  hj  instinct  more  than  by  reflection 
that  for  his  faith  to  impress  Lyon  it  must  be  lifted  above  sus- 
picion of  the  taint  of  extravagance.  The  sense  of  responsi- 
bility steadied  his  vision  and  stirred  him  to  a  reply  more  po- 
litic, if  not  more  persuasive,  than  the  dogmas  which  sufficed 
for  his  own  satisfaction.  In  consequence,  it  even  occurred  to 
Lyon  that  Kissinger  might  be  reconsidering. 

"My  belief,"  resumed  Kissinger,  "that  the  application  is 
going  to  come,  runs  back  to  this  idea.  If  an  interest  that  all 
men  share  is  baffled  by  artificial  arrangements,  the  question 
is  not  whether  there  is  any  practical  way  of  satisfying  that 

253 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     TRANSFORMATION 


iiitenvt.  The  real  question  is,  How  lone;  will  the  artificial  ar- 
raniiomonts  he  ahle  to  stave  oft'  the  inevitahle  reudjustinent? 
Mow  loiiLi;  will  it  take  for  that  interest  to  claim  its  own,  and  to 
rilire  all  tlic  accidental  hindrances  to  its  satisfaction?  Unless 
we  go  back  to  physical  interests,  that  men  have  in  common 
with  other  animals,  I  can  think  of  no  more  univei"sal  human 
interest  than  every  man's  desire  to  be  his  own  master;  the 
wish  to  be  independent  of  the  dictation  of  any  other  human 
l)eing.  Your  father  was  simply  acting  out  every-day  human 
nature  when  he  turned  down  Barclay's  suggestion  yesterday 
that  a  merger  with  the  New  Jersey  people  might  be  the  cheap- 
est way  to  handle  that  end  of  the  situation.  When  he  shook 
his  fists  in  the  directors'  faces  as  though  they  were  the  New 
Jersey  people  trying  to  force  the  proposition,  and  when  he 
swore  he  would  die  a  pauper  sooner  than  tie  up  his  own  busi- 
ness, that  he  had  managed  all  his  life,  so  that  he  would  have 
to  run  it  under  orders  from  someVjody  else,  he  was  merely 
showing  off  a  little  more  highly  developed  form  of  the  same 
interest  that  every  working  man  feels.  Judged  not  by  the 
laws,  which  are  our  present  best  stagger  toward  a  square  deal, 
but  by  the  whole  of  the  human  process  that  is  gradually  show- 
ing us  what  the  laws  ought  to  be,  no  group  of  men  can  have  a 
right  to  own  any  business  in  such  a  way  that  they  have  power 
to  dispose  at  will  of  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  other  men  who 
are  operating  partners  in  the  same  business.  We  have  no 
doubt  that  minority  stockholders  have  property  rights  which 
the  majority  must  respect.  Our  laws  recognize  the  principle 
and  protect  the  rights.  There  are  sound  reasons  why  they 
should.  We  shall  some  day  see  that  there  are  equally  sound 
reasons  for  the  principle  that  investing  labor  in  a  business  is 
just  as  good  ground  for  property  rights  in  the  business  as  in- 
vesting capital." 

Temperamentally  Lyon  v/as  a  judge  rather  than  an  advo- 
cate. Although  circumstances  had  forced  him  into  the  role 
of  legal  champion  for  a  single  aggressive  corj^oration,  and  par- 
tisanship was  therefore  his  profession,  it  had  not  become  his 
preference.  So  far  as  he  felt  at  liberty  to  act  on  his  personal 
impulse,  he  was  always  inclined  to  take  the  side  of  the  unrep- 
resented interest.  His  escapade  in  the  directors'  room  the  day 
the  strike  was  announced,  was  inconsistent  oidy  on  the  sur- 
face.    It  was  quite  in  character  with  his  constant  impulse  to 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    TRANSFORMATION 


look  for  the  best  that  might  be  said  by  the  absent  party.  He 
had  followed  his  propensity  this  time  in  giving  the  impossi- 
ble a  hearing  till  his  sense  of  fairness,  rather  than  his  self-inter- 
est, seemed  to  accuse  him,  and  to  call  for  an  end  of  the  con- 
ference. Kissinger  had  observed  nothing  which  led  him  to 
suspect  that  the  attorney's  mind  was  at  all  divided  between 
official  policy  and  abstract  opinion;  but  Lyon  had  encour- 
aged the  airing  of  social  heresies  so  freely  that  he  had  really 
begun  to  feel  like  an  abettor  of  conspiracy  against  things  as 
they  are.  As  in  his  Sunday  evening  soliloquy  with  Edgerly, 
facing  the  question,  What  is  the  next  thing  to  do?  dissipated 
the  mirage  of  the  ought-to-be  and  restored  him  to  his  sched- 
ule habit  of  affirming  life  as  it  is.  As  he  mentally  dis- 
missed abstract  theory  and  returned  to  the  level  of  daily  trans- 
actions, there  was  a  parallel  change  in  the  quality  of  his  voice. 
The  pliant  labial  softness  of  the  inquirer  hardened  into  the 
metallic  finality  of  the  man  of  affairs.  There  w^ould  have  been 
as  much  incitement  to  debate  in  the  multiplication  table  as  in 
the  form  or  the  substance  of  his  answer: — 

"But  meanwhile  we  have  to  live  and  do  business  in  a  world 
where  nobody  recognizes  that  principle.  Practical  men  deal 
with  each  other  on  the  basis  of  facts  that  everybody  accepts. 
We  might  as  well  talk  about  shipping  goods  via  the  milky 
way." 

The  hint  in  Lyon's  changed  tone  notified  Kissinger  that 
the  interview  was  over ;  but  his  courage  had  been  strengthened 
rather  than  shaken  by  this  test  in  action  with  a  real  opponent, 
and  he  put  the  whole  zeal  of  his  faith  into  a  final  assertion : — 

"When  the  Americans  took  their  stand  on  the  principle 
'No  taxation  without  representation,'  not  a  man  of  them  could 
foresee  how  the  principle  would  work  out  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States;  but  sooner  or  later  every  truth  creates 
its  own  application.  We  can't  see  just  what  sort  of  social 
machinery  the  principle  of  the  universal  partnership  of  all 
workers  is  going  to  create ;  but  whether  we  admit  it  or  not  the 
principle  itself  is  in  the  nature  of  human  society,  and  conflict- 
ing interests  will  hammer  away  on  one  another  until  all  our 
institutions  are  wrought  into  a  shape  that  will  give  the  princi- 
ple full  scope.  The  main  question  between  classes  today  is 
not  in  the  first  instance  a  matter  of  ways  and  means.  It  is  the 
question  whether  they  will  line  up  for  or  against  the  principle 
that  all  laborers  are  partners.    We  are  using  fictions  for  the 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     TRANSFORMATION 


fomuiations  of  society  till  that  principle  is  fully  accepted. 
After  it  has  won  its  way  the  applications  will  follow.  Men 
will  not  stop  figliting  for  real  justice  and  real  democracy  till 
each  one's  investment  of  labor  for  the  common  weal  fixes  his 
rit^hts  of  suffrage  and  his  rights  of  ])ro])erty." 


256 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   NOVICE 


THE    NOVICE 


XVI 
THE   NOVICE 

'These  two  weeks  burst  the  shell  of  Hester's  intuition  that, 
for  her  class,  relief  of  distress  was  less  goodness  than 
polite  evasion  of  the  issue." 


HESTER  KINZIE  became  a  factor  in  the  strike  from  the 
moment  of  her  conclusion  that  treatment  of  causes  rather 
than  effects  is  the  way  to  social  betterment. 

Graham's  talks  had  not  struck  the  same  note  in  the  minds 
of  the  two  girls,  but  they  had  produced  similar  results. 

In  Elsie  the  stimulus  of  a  man  weighing  conventionalities 
in  his  own  scales,  and  dedicating  his  strength  to  pur])oses  ap- 
praised at  his  own  valuation,  quickened  dormant  protest 
against  the  passivity  of  her  own  life,  and  brought  a  return  of 
unabashed  will  to  work. 

Graham  personified  to  ITaster  her  more  special  problem. 
He  made  it  real  and  distinct  and  insistent.  His  solution  could 
not  be  taken  over  bodily  into  her  program  of  life,  but  it  had 
crystallized  her  fluid  desire  to  find  a  solution  of  her  own.  He 
seemed  to  be  wrestling  with  the  question,  What  is  the  best 
work  that  one  can  set  one's  hand  to  who  has  inherited  the 
power  and  privilege  that  go  Avith  wealth?  She  had  long  been 
inquiring  without  effectively  answering,  Having  money  has 
one  different  duties  from  one  having  none? 

The  reports  that  came  from  Chicago  lent  force  to  the  habit- 
ual impulse  of  both  girls  to  relieve  human  need.  On  the  re- 
turn trip  they  resolved  to  make  a  start  in  finding  something 
to  do  that  might  help  to  improve  the  situation.  Like  most 
well  disposed  people  with  healthy  social  instincts,  their  imag- 
ination halted  with  cases.  It  did  not  press  farther  into  the 
meaning  of  cases  as  fair  fruits  of  conditions.  They  offered 
their  services  a.s  friendly  visitors  in  the  Associated  Charities 
district  that  included  the  Avery  works.  It  was  the  closest 
approach  to  finding  a  fulcrum  for  moving  the  world  which 
well-meaning  young  women  of  their  class  would  know  how 
to  make.  With  equal  good  faith  their  offer  was  accepted  by 
the  Society. 

261 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


Two  devoted  weeks  sufficed  to  develop  the  baffling  percep- 
tion not  that  such  efTort  w;i.>:  useless,  but  that  it  was  a  hopeless 
substitute  for  removal  of  causes. 

Contact  with  instances  of  destitution,  and  even  of  pauper- 
ism, merely  accentuated  the  paradox  that  poverty  was  less 
puzzlinn;  than  prosperity. 

Fii'st-hand  acquaintance  with  charity  workers,  and  with 
neighboi-s  of  families  in  need  of  assistance,  shifted  the  appar- 
ent centre  of  social  unrest  from  the  impossible  to  the  compe- 
tent. The  persistent  motif  of  discontent  w^as  not  that  no  one 
would  give  help,  but  that  society  was  in  a  tangle  which  kept 
the  majority  of  the  self-reliant  from  doing  their  best  to  help 
themselves.  It  was  not  a  condition  of  feebleness  but  of  handi- 
capped power. 

These  two  weeks  burst  the  shell  of  Hester's  intuition  that, 
for  her  class,  relief  of  distress  was  less  goodness  than  polite 
evasion  of  the  issue.  What  better  could  be  done  was  not  much 
clearer  to  her  than  before,  but  two  or  three  insights  had  taken 
shape  in  her  mind,  and  they  had  quickened  her  in.stinct  that 
it  was  vulgarity  not  to  be  in  search  of  more  effective  measures. 
She  was  sure  that  something  w^as  out  of  gear  in  society.  Her 
suspicion  had  growm  stronger  that  some  of  the  trouble  w^ould 
sometime  be  located  in  the  morals  of  property.  The  most 
distinct  impression  of  all  was  that  it  was  more  the  duty  of 
those  who  had  property  than  of  those  who  hadn't  it  to  find 
out  what  was  the  matter. 

Hester  faithfully  permitted  full  freedom  to  the  feminine 
fashion  of  personalizing  abstract  problems.  In  her  case,  how- 
ever, the  foible  was  exceptional  in  giving  a  judicial  severity 
to  her  reflection,  w^hich  most  approaches  to  social  problems 
from  the  upper  side  conspicuously  lack.  Instead  of  refusing 
to  admit  that  there  might  be  open  questions  about  social  prin- 
ciples w^hich  touched  her  interests,  Hester  habitually  treated 
henself  as  defendant,  without  presumption  of  innocence.  She 
saw"  no  way  to  settle  social  principles  till  she  could  give  a  con- 
clusive account  of  herself.  Without  effort  of  her  own,  she 
was  mistress  of  millions.  She  had  power  to  make  life  harder 
or  easier  for  several  thousand  human  beings.  She  had  never 
done  anything  for  them,  but  their  labor  created  her  income. 
Parts  of  these  facts  she  had  lately  discovered.  Other  parts  she 
had  taken  for  granted  all  her  life.  The  bald  statement  of 
them,  w^hich  her  latest  encounters  w4th  life  had  dictated,  nar- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


rowed  her  concern  with  the  social  problam  down  to  the  radical 
question,  What  gives  me  a  right  to  my  rights? 

A  week-end  visit  to  the  Lyons  at  Lake  Geneva  was  less  an 
outing  for  Hester  than  an  opportunity  to  push  her  inquiry. 

The  Lyon  cottage  would  have  rated  as  a  defacement  of  the 
scenery,  if  it  had  not  been  so  enshrouded  by  trees  that  it  was 
visible  only  within  its  own  presei^ve.  Externally  it  was  merely 
a  magnified  log  cabin.  It  contained,  however,  all  the  necessi- 
ties of  modern  comfort,  and  some  of  the  luxuries,  but  none  of 
the  display.  The  landscape  gardener  had  enjoyed  scope  de- 
nied to  the  architect.  The  home  grounds  were  the  hospitable 
front  yard  of  a  model  farm.  The  farm  itself  was  traversed 
by  a  scheme  of  park  roads,  extending  several  miles  inland, 
and  converging  in  a  broad  avenue  that  encircled  The  Lodge. 

It  was  one  of  those  faultless  afternoons  of  the  Indian  Sum- 
mer, in  which  it  was  easy  to  remember  leniently  the  rest  of  the 
year,  and  to  claim  for  the  region  the  fairest  climate  in  the 
world.  After  a  trip  down  the  lake  to  church  in  the  morning, 
and  the  usual  Sunday  reversion  to  dinner  at  noon,  the  party 
was  gathered  in  a  corner  of  the  lawn  from  which  the  rovers 
of  the  miniature  sea  could  be  observed  through  a  cloister  of 
trees. 

A  change  had  come  into  the  temper  of  the  family.  Whether 
permanent  or  temporary,  for  the  time  being  it  admitted  busi- 
ness topics  within  the  domestic  circle.  Seriousness  had  al- 
ways been  the  most  obvious  finding  mark  of  the  Lyons'  family 
life,  but  it  was  now  crossed  by  an  ill-omened  tolerance  of  the 
dreaded  subject  which  had  forced  its  way  to  the  center  of  at- 
tention. The  tact  of  all  combined  was  not  able  to  keep  interest 
aimed  long  at  a  time  in  other  directions.  The  family  tradition 
had  stood  hard  on  its  dignity,  but  in  the  last  week  or  two  it  had 
almost  abandoned  the  field.  The  strike,  or  some  of  its  con- 
nections, ruled  the  thoughts  of  the  whole  group,  and  by  tacit 
consent  there  had  been  a  gradual  lifting  of  the  embargo  on 
the  usually  tabooed  theme.  At  first  the  impertinent  topic 
had  been  remanded  after  little  more  than  passive  admission 
that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  labor  disturbance ;  but  today 
Hester  used  a  recurrence  of  the  main  subject  as  an  opening  for 
active  inquiry.  She  had  been  thinking  out  the  substance 
rather  than  the  form  of  questions  which  she  wanted  to  pro- 
pose, and  she  was  hardly  more  forewarned  than  her  guardian 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


against  the  lirst  query,  ''Did  it  ever  occur  to  you,  Uncle  David, 
that  labor  troubles  will  be  stopj^ed  when  you  can  eliminate 


ine 


v 


Unless  they  were  of  the  obvious  order  to  which  common 
usage  had  given  a  current  value,  figures  of  speech  were  usually 
objects  of  suspicion  to  Mr.  Lyon.  To  minimize  risk  he  chose 
to  take  the  question  literally,  and  he  kept  well  under  cover 
with  the  answer,  ''I  had  not  heard  that  you  had  been  mixed 
up  with  labor  troubles.  Hester." 

"Then  possibly  I'm  the  clue  to  a  comedy  of  errors,"  extem- 
porized Hester,  while  she  was  trying  to  adapt  her  questions  to 
this  un])remeditated  version.  "I've  been  doing  a  lot  of  think- 
ing lately,  and  I  have  decided  that  I  am  the  wicked  partner. 
You  may  get  an  entirely  new  view  of  the  strike  when  you  find 
out  that  I  am  the  real  grievance." 

Mr.  Lyon's  habitual  complaisance  with  Hester  always  al- 
lowed her  playfulness  liberties  which  he  would  have  rebuked 
in  another.  Mrs.  Lyon  was  less  liberal.  She  felt  that  under 
the  circumstances  the  subject  was  too  dubious  for  light  treat- 
ment. To  tell  the  truth,  Edith  was  of  much  the  same  mind, 
although  she  easily  accepted  Hester's  unexpectedness  as  an 
offset  for  her  lack  of  veneration.  Logan  Lyon  and  Edgerh- 
were  about  equally  divided  between  amusement  at  the  chill 
which  Hester's  apparent  jauntiness  imparted  to  the  atmos- 
phere, and  curiosity  whether  her  latest  conceit  would  pres- 
ently disclo.«e  an  idea. 

Both  Mrs.  Edgerly  and  her  mother  quickly  took  refuge 
among  the  magazines  of  the  month,  while  the  two  younger 
men  swung  lazily  in  their  hammocks,  with  the  appearance  of 
noticing  nothing  beyond  their  cigars.  They  were  really  tak- 
ing in  every  word  of  the  dialogue,  and  their  interest  grew 
more  alert  as  they  pondered  on  the  probable  bearings  of  the 
argument. 

Hester's  fancy  plainly  gave  Mr.  Lyon  no  clue  to  her  mean- 
ing, and  on  her  part  it  was  an  economy  of  effort  to  become 
more  literal.  To  be  less  enigmatic  she  took  a  new  start: — "I 
wish  you  would  explain  to  me,  L^ncle  David,  how  anybody 
gets  a  right  to  an  income  from  the  Avery  Company." 

''Why,  Hester,  by  earning  it  in  some  way  or  other."  Mr. 
Lyon  had  a  feeling  that  this  was  escaping  from  the  absurd  to 
the  axiomatic. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


"That  is  my  idea,  too,  Uncle  David,"  and  Hester  was  sure 
she  could  make  use  of  the  admission ;  "but  can  you  help  me 
find  out  what  I  have  done  to  earn  my  dividends?" 

"Why,  that  is  a  different  matter  of  course,"  Mr.  Lyon 
stammered ;  and  his  mind  would  not  have  been  open  to  con- 
viction that  his  "of  course"  was  the  exact  equivalent  of  the 
proverbial  woman's  "because."  "You  have  a  right  to  your 
dividends  by  inheritance." 

"Yes,  Uncle  David,  I  know  those  words  by  rote,"  pursued 
Hester,  "but  they  seem  to  me  merely  a  way  of  hushing  up  the 
difficulty.  If  the  way  to  get  an  income  is  to  earn  it,  what 
right  has  anyone  to  invent  such  a  device  as  inheritance,  which 
makes  it  possible  for  some  people  to  get  an  income  without 
earning  it?" 

"If  you  push  the  matter  as  far  as  that,"  and  Mr.  Lyon  made 
a  long  pause  before  finishing  his  sentence,  his  deliberateness 
plainly  showing  that  he  was  not  quite  ready  with  an  answer ; 
"a  complete  explanation  would  take  us  pretty  deep  into  tech- 
nicalities.   In  a  word,  though,  your  capital  earns  it." 

"If  you  won't  mind  the  technicalities,  Uncle  David,"  Hes- 
ter insisted,  "I  should  like  to  make  an  effort  with  them.  When 
you  say  'capital  earns  it'  you  seem  to  me  merely  to  be  putting 
the  mystery  in  other  words,  instead  of  explaining  it.  I  used 
to  discuss  this  point  with  Papa  by  the  hour  when  we  read 
political  economy  together.  He  was  always  obliged  to  end 
by  telling  me  that  I  would  understand  these  things  better 
after  I  had  had  more  experience  with  business.  The  longer 
I  think  about  it  the  more  it  seems  to  me  that  all  the  variations 
of  'capital  earns  it'  are  really  different  ways  of  begging  the 
question.  Indeed,  I  must  confess  that  it  seems  to  me  to  beg 
two  questions,  and  either  of  them  is  important  enough  to  put 
the  fairness  of  things  in  the  doubtful  class.  I  don't  want  you 
to  think.  Uncle  David,  that  I  am  so  foolish  as  to  imagine 
myself  wiser  than  all  the  world  put  together.  I  simply  don't 
understand,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  if  the  world  is  right  it 
ought  to  be  wise  enough  to  make  anybody  understand  who 
really  wants  to  know.  I  will  do  my  best  to  follow  what  you 
say,  if  you  will  tell  me  a  little  more  about  each  of  these  ques- 
tions separately.  It  may  be  you  w411  see  where  to  begin  if  I 
acknowledge  the  whole  of  my  ignorance.  In  fact  I  have  never 
been  able  to  think  of  an  instance  in  which  capital  ever  earned 
a  cent." 

265 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


Hester's  declaration  afTeoted  Mr.  Lyon  very  much  as  if  she 
had  said  she  had  never  known  the  sun  to  shine  or  the  grass 
to  grow.  If  a  man  had  made  the  avowal,  Mr.  Lyon  would 
have  supposed  he  was  either  imbecile  or  insincere.  Neither 
alternative  would  apply  to  Hester,  and  although  it  seemed 
incredible  that  she  could  have  remained  so  juvenile  in  her 
views  on  such  a  subject,  while  she  was  in  other  ways  so  saga- 
cious, her  guardian  quite  consistently  assumed  the  explana- 
tion that  "childish"  and  ''girlish"  told  the  whole  story.  He 
accordingly  inferred  that  correction  of  the  error  was  merely 
a  matter  of  directing  attention  to  a  few  facts  that  are  every- 
day commonplaces  for  men. 

''I  should  hardly  nominate  myself  as  a  tutor."  he  ven- 
tured, "where  your  father's  teaching  ability  had  failed  to 
open  your  eyes.  I  shall  have  to  answer  your  question  as  a 
plain  financial  proposition,  just  as  if  you  asked  me  for  ad- 
vice about  starting  a  business.  Suppose  we  go  back  before 
the  Avery  Company  was  organized.  Some  men  see  a  chance 
to  build  up  an  industry.  They  think  it  all  over  and  decide 
how  they  want  to  begin.  Some  one  must  give  his  time  to  work 
out  plans.  A  proper  location  must  be  found.  Lawyers  must 
be  engaged  to  draft  a  charter  that  will  give  the  Company  the 
rights  it  needs.  Architects  and  engineers  must  be  selected 
and  told  what  is  wanted,  and  their  advice  must  be  studied 
very  carefully  before  it  is  adopted.  Contracts  for  buildings 
and  for  machinery  must  be  let.  Experts  must  be  employed 
to  take  charge  of  different  divisions  of  the  work,  and  they 
must  pick  out  a  large  body  of  operatives,  many  of  them 
skilled  laborers,  others  unskilled.  Large  quantities  of  raw 
material  must  be  used.  A  great  amount  of  fuel  and  other 
supplies  must  be  consumed,  and  all  this  before  a  dollar's 
worth  of  product  can  be  sold.  Now  what  pays  the  expenses 
of  all  these  organizers,  and  their  expert  assistants,  and  the 
builders  and  operatives;  and  what  furnishes  all  the  material 
which  at  last  begins  to  put  on  the  market  something  that  can 
bring  a  return  for  the  cost?" 

"That  is  all  very  plain,"  conceded  Hester,  with  a  docility 
which  gave  her  guardian  the  impression  that  this  one  case 
from  real  life  had  settled  the  matter.  "Capital  has  to  do  all 
this.  But  what  I  don't  see  is  that  capital  earns  anything  by 
its  part  in  the  business.  Let  me  suppose  that  you  and  Papa 
were  the  only  organizers.     You  had  earned  enough  money 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


before  to  pay  your  own  expenses  while  you  were  plan- 
ning, and  to  pay  the  salaries  of  the  different  experts,  and  the 
wages  of  the  workmen,  and  the  cost  of  all  the  building  and 
equipment  and  material.  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  you  and 
Papa  and  all  the  other  men  worked  and  earned  all  that  wa,s 
made  in  the  plant.  Your  labor  in  the  first  place  kept  the  capi- 
tal from  losing  its  value,  by  using  it,  and  then  your  labor 
brought  more  into  existence,  but  the  capital  itself  was  all  the 
time  powerless  except  as  your  labor  changed  it  into  things  of 
more  value." 

Mr.  Lyon  was  not  in  the  habit  of  drawing  precisely  such 
distinctions.  He  had  concerned  himself  very  little  with  eco- 
nomic abstractions  beyond  the  stock  phrases  of  every-day 
business,  and  he  did  not  foresee  the  dilemma  to  which  Hes- 
ter's approach  was  leading.  He  had  no  specific  objection  to 
her  way  of  stating  the  facts,  but  he  preferred  the  form  with 
which  he  was  more  familiar,  and  he  did  not  see  any  need  of 
giving  it  up.  To  guard  the  rights  of  the  customary  view",  he 
continued: — "Of  course  labor  is  necessary  to  make  the  capital 
productive,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  labor  could  not  be  pro- 
ductive without  the  capital." 

''If  nothing  more  than  that  were  involved,"  returned  Hes- 
ter, ''I  could  understand  it.  I  know  that  every  one  except 
savages  gets  on  by  using  things  that  have  been  saved  up,  in- 
stead of  destroying  them.  By  turning  the  products  of  pre- 
vious labor  into  means  of  promoting  present  labor  we  expand 
our  ability  to  supply  our  wants.  That  is  all  as  plain  as  day. 
But  then  you  add  on  to  that  something  which  is  not  at  all 
plain.  It  seems  to  me  like  the  conjuror  pulling  ribbons  and 
rabbits  out  of  the  empty  hat.  You  say  the  capital  earns  this 
output.  That  doesn't  mean  anything  to  me.  Suppose  the 
capital  which  you  and  Papa  had  earned  were  already  in  the 
different  forms  wdiich  your  labor  could  make  useful — a  part 
of  it  in  money,  part  in  provisions,  part  in  stone,  lumber,  steel, 
machinery  and  so  on.  Now  if  that  capital  were  left  to  itself, 
with  no  human  labor  applied  to  it,  not  only  would  no  new 
capital  be  produced  by  it,  but  in  a  very  short  time  some  of  it 
would  begin  to  lose  its  own  value,  and  it  would  not  take  long 
for  quite  a  portion  of  it  to  disappear  altogether.  That  was  what 
I  meant  when  I  said  that  I  had  never  found  a  case  of  capital 
adding  a  cent's  worth  to  itself,  except  as  a  result  of  human 
labor." 

267 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


Mr.  J.yon  had  not  surmised  that  Hester  \v;is  working;  out  a 
deliberate  strategical  plan.  He  assumed  that  her  ideas  were 
as  rudimentary  about  business  matters  as  they  appeared.  He 
supposed  therefore  that  lie  had  but  to  provide  for  the  most  pri- 
mary statement  of  the  situation,  without  anticipating  more 
searching  inquiry  into  deeper  phases  of  the  facts.  He  ac- 
cordingly walked  straight  into  Hester's  snare. 

"Why  certainly,  my  dear,"  Mr.  Lyon  responded  encourag- 
ingly, ''if  it  will  help  you  out  of  your  difficulties  I  am  quite 
ready  to  acknowledge  that  you  are  right  in  a  way.  If  we 
leave  out  natural  increase  of  plants  and  animals,  which  I  be- 
lieve the  economists  put  under  the  head  of  'land'  or  'nature,' 
rather  than  capital,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  increase  of  capi- 
tal in  the  strict  sense  except  by  exertion  of  human  effort.  In 
that  sense  of  course  all  wealth  is  the  reward  of  human  labor." 

Hester  gave  no  sign  that  she  was  aware  of  having  scored 
a  point.  Her  method  as  an  ingenue  was  that  of  repression. 
In  the  same  tone  of  eager  inquiry  she  proceeded : — 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that,  Uncle  David,  because  it 
will  help  me  a  good  deal  about  the  next  point  that  troubles 
me.  Perhaps  I  shall  find  that  what  you  really  think  is  not 
so  different  from  my  ideas  as  I  supposed.  The  next  thing  that 
I  am  curious  about  is  this.  When  you  and  Papa  worked  with 
your  capital  in  starting  the  Avery  Company,  you  earned  your 
profits  as  the  reward  of  your  labor,  just  as  the  other  men 
earned  their  salaries  and  their  wages.  It  might  be  put  in  that 
way.  might  it  not?" 

"Certainly,  Hester,"  assented  Mr.  Lyon,  rather  relieved  by 
the  evidence  that  his  ward  was  not  infected  by  the  delusion 
that  the  capitalist  is  not  worthy  of  his  hire. 

"So  far  all  is  plain  then,"  continued  Hester,  with  tempo- 
rarily concealed  consciousness  that  the  colloquy  was  approach- 
ing a  crisis.  "But  a  great  blank  comes  into  my  mind,  Uncle 
David,  when  I  try  to  understand  how  my  father  earned  any 
thing  any  longer,  when  he  retired  from  the  business  and  be- 
came simply  a  stockholder." 

The  design  in  Hester's  innocence  had  not  yet  revealed  itself 
to  Mr.  Lyon.  Instead  of  a  long  step  in  logical  strategy,  the 
question  wa.s  to  him  only  another  exhibit  of  infantile  un- 
steadiness in  learning  to  walk.  He  had  no  feeling  of  the  in- 
stability of  his  premises  as  he  fell  back  upon  the  familiar 
formula : — 


268 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


"Why,  my  child,  his  capital  was  still  earning  for  him." 

"But,  Uncle  David,"  urged  Hester  demurely,  "I  thought 
we  agreed  just  now  that  human  effort  does  the  earning,  not 
capital." 

The  gathering  stringency  of  the  argument  was  not  yet 
fully  apparent  to  Mr.  Lyon,  but  he  began  to  lose  patience  with 
himself  for  supposing  that  even  as  bright  a  girl  as  Hester 
could  be  an  exception  to  the  rule  that  it  is  impossible  for  the 
feminine  mind  to  understand  business.  He  felt,  however, 
that  his  way  out  of  the  difficulty  must  be  not  by  convincing 
her  of  ignorance,  but  at  least  by  showing  that  her  ideas  were 
out  of  place  in  real  life.  It  was  too  late  to  retract  the  un- 
guarded admission  to  which  Hester  appealed,  so  he  tried  to 
make  the  best  of  it  by  forcing  its  meaning. 

"Precisely!"  insisted  Mr.  Lyon,  without  a  misgiving  that 
he  was  contradicting  himself.  "The  effort  that  your  father 
exerted  in  creating  that  capital  goes  on  working  in  the  capital, 
whether  he  works  with  it  or  not." 

"But  suppose  every  one  else  in  the  business  stopped  work- 
ing at  the  same  time,"  persisted  Hester,  "how  would  Papa's 
effort  show  itself?  Would  his  capital  continue  to  increase  be- 
cause he  created  it  by  work?" 

This  inquisitiveness  of  his  ward  began  to  affect  Mr.  Lyon 
as  uncanny.  He  saw^  that  he  must  either  go  over  the  same 
ground  again  and  arrive  at  the  same  point,  or  turn  her 
thoughts  in  another  direction.  He  was  not  aware  that  he  was 
unwalling  to  face  ugly  realities.  He  firmly  believed  that  Hes- 
ter was  toying  with  imaginary  difficulties,  and  that  he  was 
telling  her  the  unvarnished  truth.  He  was  inclined  to  think 
that  her  interest  in  such  things  was  unfortunate,  but  he  was 
unwilling  to  close  the  conversation  without  another  attempt 
to  make  the  facts  as  direct  and  simple  as  possible. 

"Perhaps  it  will  help  you  understand  the  matter,"  he  re- 
sumed, "if  you  look  at  it  in  this  way.  Your  father  worked  a 
certain  number  of  years,  and  saved  a  certain  amount  out  of 
his  earnings.  Now  would  it  not  be  a  very  strange  and  unjust 
state  of  affairs,  if  he  could  not  use  those  savings  in  any  way 
he  pleased?  Would  not  that  be  equivalent  to  denying  him 
his  right  to  the  reward  of  his  labor?" 

"I  should  think  so,  of  course,"  assented  Hester,  again  with 
an  eagernass  which  encouraged  Mr.  Lyon  to  hope  that  he  had 
found  the  right  clue,  "but  if  I  see  what  you  mean,  it  simply 

269 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


implies  the  answer  that  1  can't  understand  to  the  other  ques- 
tion. Let  me  suppose  a  sum  that  is  not  hirge  enough  to  con- 
fuse my  mind.  Suppose  Papa  had  saved  a  thousand  dollars. 
Now  it  seems  to  me  natural  that  he  should  have  a  choice  be- 
tween two  ways  of  enjoying  his  rights  to  his  earnings.  He 
could  either  spend  the  money  on  things  that  he  wanted,  or  he 
could  work  with  it  as  capital,  and  earn  more  with  it.  When- 
ever he  cared  to  stop  working  he  would  have  a  right  to  live 
on  what  he  had  saved,  or  he  could  keep  on  working  and  use 
up  all  that  he  earned  from  year  to  year,  without  taking  any- 
thing out  of  his  capital.  But  whenever  he  preferred  to  stop 
working  entirely,  the  only  right  left  to  him  would  be  the  en- 
joyment of  his  savings.  My  difficulty  is  to  see  how  he  has  any 
right  to  eat  his  cake  and  have  it  too." 

"But,  my  dear  child,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Lyon,  "investing  his 
money  is  one  of  the  ways  of  getting  the  benefit  of  it." 

"My  trouble,"  continued  Hester,  regardless  of  her  guard- 
ian's apparent  opinion  that  there  was  no  room  for  further 
doubt,  "is  that  investing  the  money  turns  out  to  be  a  way  of 
getting  the  benefit  of  it  and  a  good  deal  more.  It  looks  to 
me  as  though  investing  the  money  is  simply  one  way  of  sav- 
ing it,  and  it  would  end  with  that  if  artificial  contrivances  had 
not  been  invented.  If  Papa  wanted  to  escape  working  with 
his  money  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  he  had  the  choice  between 
hiding  it  somewhere  and  leaving  it  in  the  hands  of  people 
who  would  work  with  it  and  give  him  security  for  its  return. 
If  he  had  hidden  it,  he  could  have  drawn  from  it  whenever 
he  pleased  till  it  was  all  gone,  but  he  surely  could  not  have 
used  more  than  he  hoarded.  When  he  puts  it  in  the  hands  of 
workers,  he  does  no  more  work  himself  than  if  he  had  buried 
the  capital  in  the  ground.  But  the  protection  which  the  laws 
give  makes  the  workers  really  insure  the  money,  so  that  it  is 
safer  than  it  would  be  if  it  were  buried.  Nothing  that  Papa 
does  seems  to  me  to  give  him  a  right  to  enjoy  more  than  the 
bare  amount  of  his  earnings  in  the  second  case  more  than  in 
the  first." 

In  casting  about  for  something  to  say  which  would  meet 
the  needs  of  such  incredible  simplicity,  Mr.  Lyon  experienced 
a  fleeting  gust  of  sympathy  w4th  teachers,  if  this  was  a  sample 
of  the  sort  of  reaction  against  the  obvious  which  they  had  to 
correct.  He  was  not  intentionally  evasive.  He  meant  to  deal 
candidly  with  Hester's  difficulties.    Her  queries  had  not  sug- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


gested  to  him  the  remotest  possibility  that  she  might  have 
proposed  questions  which  undermined  primary  assumptions 
of  business.  Her  inability  to  accept  every-day  commercial 
propositions  seemed  to  him  rather  like  his  own  boyish  state 
of  mind  when  he  scoffed  at  the  multiplication  table.  He  did 
not  consciously  avoid  the  issue.  He  supposed  that  he  was 
speaking  directly  to  the  question  when  he  took  recourse  in 
the  stock  irrelevance — "You  do  not  stop  to  think,  Hester, 
that  very  few  people  would  invest  their  money  unless  they 
could  get  profits  on  it." 

The  failure  of  her  guardian  to  meet  the  questions  did  not 
surprise  Hester.  Her  father  had  gone  over  the  ground  so 
often  that  she  knew  precisely  what  to  expect.  She  was  not  so 
much  hoping  for  new  light  as  she  was  exploring  her  guardian's 
mind  to  see  if  recent  events  had  tended  to  unsettle  any  of  his 
opinions.  She  was  satisfied  that  no  breach  had  been  made  in 
his  defenses  at  the  first  point  of  approach,  and  without  the 
slightest  confusion  about  her  guardian's  failures  to  reply,  and 
without  a  sign  that  she  knew  he  was  retreating  to  quite  differ- 
ent ground  from  that  which  her  questions  reconnoitred,  she 
was  not  unwilling  to  test  the  strength  of  the  second  line  of  de- 
fense. 

"Papa  used  to  insist  on  that,"  Hester  admitted,  "and  I  have 
no  doubt  about  it,  but  I  do  not  see  how  it  proves  all  that  it  is 
supposed  to." 

She  w^as  still  playing  the  part  of  an  inquirer,  and  carefully 
concealing  the  aggressive  aim  of  her  questions.  "If  you  have 
patience  enough  to  hear  it.  Uncle  David,  I  will  explain  my 
trouble  with  your  answer.  You  will  think  it  is  foolish,  of 
course,  but  you  can't  help  me  unless  you  know  just  how  things 
seem  to  me.  I  can  say  what  I  mean  best  by  comparison  with 
something  else.  Suppose  I  had  lost  a  thousand  dollars,  would 
anybody  who  found  it  have  a  right  to  keep  it?" 

"Certainly  not,  without  taking  proper  means  to  find  the 
owner,"  replied  Mr.  Lyon,  with  evident  curiosity  to  learn  what 
connection  Hester  could  find  between  such  a  case  and  profits 
on  investments. 

"But  if  I  should  offer  a  hundred  dollars  for  returning  nine 
hundred,"  continued  Hester,  "would  the  finder  have  a  right 
to  accept  the  reward?" 

"Of  course,"  Mr.  Lyon  returned  emphatically,  "and  it 
would  be  good  policy  to  make  the  offer,  because  we  cannot  be 

271 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


i?iire  that  people  are  honest  enough  to  do  what  is  right  without 
s^oiiie  advantage  to  theni^elve,'*." 

"But  iJuppose  you  found  my  money,  Uncle  David,  would 
you  have  a  right  to  the  reward?" 

It  was  not  a  doubt  about  the  proprieties  of  the  supposed 
ease  that  caused  Mr.  Lyon  to  hesitate.  His  feelings  were  per- 
fectly correct  and  unequivocal  in  this  connection,  but  he  w^as 
not  used  to  tinding  words  for  such  scholastic  suppositions. 
With  the  impres.-i(»n  that  Hester  was  losing  her  interest  in  the 
niain  subject,  he  humored  what  he  took  to  be  a  new  fancy  by 
replying,  ''My  right  to  the  reward  would  be  as  good  as  any- 
one's, but  of  course  I  could  not  take  it." 

''But,"  persisted  Hester,  "is  that  not  unbusinesslike?  If 
it  is  proper  for  the  loser  to  offer  the  reward,  and  for  the  finder 
to  receive  it,  why  should  exceptions  be  made?" 

Mr.  Lyon  was  nearer  than  he  realized  to  another  trap.  As 
the  subject  appeared  to  him  quite  disconnected  with  anything 
else,  however,  he  did  not  feel  the  need  of  qualifying  his  reply. 
He  had  never  tried  to  explain  such  a  case  before,  and  it  was 
as  though  he  were  working  out  a  question  in  mental  arith- 
metic, for  his  own  satisfaction,  as  he  responded: — "A  reward 
for  returning  lost  property,  apart  from  trouble  and  expense 
that  it  may  have  cost  the  finder,  is  a  sort  of  spur  to  good-will 
and  honest3^  Very  few  people  care  as  much  for  other  peo- 
ple's interests  as  they  do  for  their  own.  Many  people  are  not 
honest  enough  to  respect  other  people's  rights  unless  there  is 
some  gain  in  it  for  themselves.  Everybody  ought  to  want 
everybody  else  to  have  all  that  belongs  to  them,  but  everybody 
does  not  feel  that  waj'.  A  reward  in  such  a  case  helps  some 
people  to  act  as  though  they  were  honester  than  they  really 
are,  and  we  are  better  ofiF  when  we  pay  the  reward  than  if  we 
trusted  to  honesty  alone.  But  the  honester  we  are,  and  the 
more  we  care  for  one  another's  interests,  the  less  possible  is  it 
for  us  to  make  gain  by  helping  others  to  w^hat  really  belongs 
to  them.  Between  friends,  accepting  a  reward  for  returning 
lost  propertv  would  prove  that  the  friendship  w^as  counter- 
feit." 

"You  have  expressed  my  ideas  better  than  I  could.  Uncle 
David,"  Hester  commented  gratefully.  She  did  not  see  much 
prospect  of  making  the  argument  effective  upon  her  guardian, 
but  his  analysis  confirmed  her  belief  that  she  was  on  the  right 
track,  and  that  she  could  trust  her  own  reasoning  even  when 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


it  led  away  from  current  conclusions.  Still  she  was  not  en- 
tirely hopeless  of  making  some  slight  impression  with  her 
comparison.  Meanwhile  it  would  not  have  added  to  her  con- 
fidence if  she  could  have  measured  the  inertia  of  Mr.  Lyon's 
mind  as  she  proceeded  to  apply  the  analogy. 

'Tapa  always  used  to  rely  at  last  on  the  same  justification 
for  profits  that  you  have  given,  Uncle  David,  and  it  seems  to 
me  that  it  is  good  up  to  a  certain  limit.  The  last  winter  we 
were  in  Vienna  we  read  Bohm-Bawerk's  books  together,  and 
we  had  several  conversations  with  the  professor  himself  about 
his  theories.  My  own  feeling  was  that  he  had  shown  the  ab- 
surdity of  all  the  standard  explanations  of  profits  from  cap- 
ital, but  had  offered  a  substitute  as  absurd  as  the  rest.  But 
your  own  way  of  expressing  it  makes  me  feel  that  I  have  not 
been  so  very  wrong  after  all  in  putting  two  things  together, 
and  thinking  that  the  reason  you  give  for  profits  is  precisely 
the  same  reason  that  you  give  for  rewarding  the  return  of  lost 
property.  When  we  cancel  the  fictitious  'earnings'  of  capital 
and  the  actual  earnings  of  capitalists  who  do  necessary  work 
with  the  investment,  and  deserve  their  wage  like  other  labor- 
ers, all  I  can  see  left  that  has  any  force,  in  the  usual  theories 
of  profits,  is  the  claim  that  something  is  needed  in  the  shape 
of  a  prize,  to  spur  people  who  couldn't  be  depended  on  to  do 
right  for  its  own  sake  to  do  it  for  the  sake  of  the  reward.  This 
answers  one  of  my  two  questions,  but  I  am  very  sure  jou  will 
not  want  to  put  the  same  meaning  into  the  answer  that  I  do 
For  me,  w^hat  we  have  said  amounts  to  this : — The  idea  that 
capital  itself  earns  anything  is  a  delusive  rhetorical  expres- 
sion. The  earning  is  all  done  by  the  people  who  do  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  work  with  the  capital.  If  people  who  own 
capital  do  not  need  to  consume  it,  and  do  not  want  to  work 
with  it  themselves,  it  is  merely  good  citizenship  for  them  to 
save  it  in  the  most  useful  way,  by  allowing  other  people  to 
work  with  it.  It  seems  to  me  that,  without  knoM'ing  it,  they 
are  only  good  citizens  for  a  Ijonus  if  they  claim  pay  in  tho 
form  of  unearned  profits  for  doing  what  it  is  to  their  own  ad- 
vantage as  well  as  other  people's  that  they  should  do  anyway. 
The  idea  has  been  growing  upon  me  that  the  people  who 
make  this  something-for-nothing  demand  on  their  fellow  cit- 
izens create  the  social  problem.  I  have  been  studying  reports 
on  Papa's  estate,  and  it  seems  that  I  am  credited  each  quarter 
with  a  little  more  than  the  quarter  before,  for  doing  nothing 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


and  allowing  other  people  to  increase  my  capital.  I  didn't 
mean  that  I  am  the  only  one  responsible  for  the  strike,  but  am 
I  so  far  out  of  the  way  in  thinking  that  the  root  of  the  trouble 
can  be  traced  to  my  class  of  people?" 

So  long  as  the  conversation  was  confined  to  generalities, 
Mrs.  Lyon  and  Edith  had  only  once  or  twice  noted  a  fragment 
of  the  dialogue.  iVt  this  apparent  return  to  a  personal  appli- 
cation their  interest  was  once  more  piqued,  and  they  instinc- 
tively listened  for  a  signal  that  would  show  them  the  affinity 
of  their  sympathies. 

Edgerly  and  Logan  Lyon  had  given  no  sign  that  they  were 
paying  attention,  but  each  in  his  way  had  made  critical  notes 
on  everything  that  had  been  said.  Each  had  observed  that,  as 
the  strike  situation  had  grown  more  acute,  all  Mr.  Lyon's  al- 
lusions to  it  had  become  more  dogmatic  and  resolute.  Each 
was  on  the  watch  for  indications  whether  these  symptoms 
meant  that  the  older  man's  convictions  were  growing  stronger, 
or  whether  they  were  merely  his  way  of  fighting  off  possible 
yielding  of  his  convictions  under  pressure.  Each  realized  too 
that  eitfier  a  support  for  the  old  order,  or  a  factor  that  might 
turn  the  scale  in  a  new  direction,  was  taking  shape  in  Hes- 
ter's mind.  They  knew  that  if  she  decided  to  exercise  her  own 
judgment,  she  Avould  hold  a  balance  of  power  Avhich  might 
reverse  the  Avery  Company's  policy.  They  could  not  regard 
the  episode  as  mere  talk.  It  was  a  critical  phase  of  the  pend- 
ing struggle.  Without  intending  to  mix  in  the  argument, 
both  men  exchanged  their  hammocks  for  chairs  which  they 
placed  nearer  to  the  zone  of  inquiry,  and  the  evidence  did  not 
escape  Hester  that  they  had  been  less  indifferent  than  they 
seemed,  but  had  found  something  beyond  triviality  in  the 
discussion. 

At  the  same  time  it  began  to  dawn  upon  Mr.  Lyon  that  he 
had  on  his  hands  more  than  an  infant-class  exercise.  Consid- 
ering Hester  merely  as  a  girl  indulging  her  curiosity,  it  made 
very  little  difference  w^hether  or  not  her  ways  of  thinking 
conformed  to  those  of  the  street.  Viewing  her  as  a  power  in 
the  affairs  of  his  corporation,  the  sort  of  advice  which  she 
accepted  became  momentous.  When  Graham  had  advertised 
the  ideas  which  Hester  expressed,  Mr.  Lyon  promptly  set 
them  down  as  vicious  weapons  in  the  hands  of  an  enemy  of 
society.  For  Hester  to  coquette  with  such  opinions  meant 
dangerous  w^eakness  among  the  friends  of  society.     For  the 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


first  time  Mr.  Lyon  realized  that  Hester's  wanderings  with  her 
father,  and  her  samplings  of  all  sorts  of  social  influence,  might 
have  infected  her  with  ideas  which  could  be  turned  against 
him  in  the  present  struggle.  He  did  not  admit  the  possibility 
that  she  might  have  found  some  more  reliable  clues  to  the 
truth  than  his  beliefs  contained.  It  was  an  invincible  convic- 
tion with  him  that  any  social  theory  which  called  in  question 
a  fundamental  assumption  of  business  was  either  ignorant  or 
criminal.  The  only  judgment  he  could  pass  upon  an  inclina- 
tion to  dally  with  such  theories  was  that  it  indicated  arrested 
or  perverted  development.  While  his  paternal  feeling  toward 
Hester  could  not  be  changed  to  harshness  by  finding  her  a  vic- 
tim of  either  misfortune,  the  necessity  of  rating  her  state  of 
mind  as  one  of  the  practical  factors  in  the  situation  threw  his 
executive  consciousness  into  circuit  and  turned  this  domestic 
incident  into  a  business  complication. 

"My  dear  child,"  he  began,  with  an  unstrained  mixture  of 
affection  and  authority,  "it  never  can  do  any  good  to  play 
with  the  sort  of  powder  you  are  handling.  The  world  is  what 
it  is,  and  wishing  difi'erently  won't  change  it.  Fire  burns, 
and  water  drowns,  and  poison  kills,  and  all  the  tears  we  may 
shed  for  the  victims  will  not  have  the  slightest  effect  in  chang- 
ing the  laws  of  nature.  It  is  the  same  with  the  laws  of  prop- 
erty. You  know  the  Bible  says,  'To  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given  and  he  shall  have  abundance.'  That  is  the  way  the 
laws  of  property  work,  of  course,  and  it  is  hard  for  those  who 
have  no  property  to  be  reconciled  to  it,  but  those  of  us  who 
know  that  brains,  not  sympathies,  make  the  rules  of  business, 
have  the  duty  of  setting  ourselves  against  every  silly  scheme 
to  substitute  sentimentality  for  the  laws  of  economics.  There 
would  be  chaos  in  the  world  if  property  were  not  sacred.  The 
rights  of  property  put  you  in  possession  of  the  estate  your 
father  legally  created.  It  is  just  as  foolish  to  question  your 
right  to  that  estate  as  it  would  be  to  doubt  your  right  to  be 
born.  The  position  for  you  to  take,  Hester,  is  that  you  are 
providentially  entrusted  with  large  business  responsibilities, 
and  that  it  is  your  duty  to  accept  business  principles  and  carry 
them  out  to  the  best  of  your  ability  in  administering  your 
property." 

Outwardly  Hester  gave  no  appearance  of  energetic  think- 
ing. No  visible  change  in  her  bearing  corresponded  with  her 
guardian's  sudden  intensity.     Not  even  Mr.  Lyon,  and  cer- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


tainly  not  the  younger  men,  knew  HcPter  well  enough  to 
measure  the  mental  and  moral  force  behind  the  gentleness 
which  was  both  an  inheritance  and  an  art.  If  Mr.  Lyon 
could  have  read  her  thoughts,  the  protest  which  he  had  just 
uttered  would  have  been  a  feeble  expression  of  his  surprise  and 
fear.  In  fact  Hester  was  appalled  at  the  vision  which  Mr. 
Lyon's  answers  gave  her  of  the  distance  between  her  view- 
point and  his.  With  the  sanguineness  of  generous  youth  she 
relied  upon  a  sutticient  love  of  truth  for  its  own  sake  to  open 
the  door  for  it  everywhere.  Although  she  had  never  been 
able  to  get  her  father's  assent  to  many  of  her  versions  of 
social  facts,  his  rejection  of  her  ideas  was  a  matter  so  apart 
from  practical  life  that  it  did  not  have  the  effect  of  Mr.  Lyon's 
obduracy  in  the  present  crisis.  He  had  furnished  ocular  proof 
of  a  certain  judicial  impotence.  Even  in  the  presence  of  a 
collapse  in  the  workings  of  his  business  principles,  he  could 
not  admit  the  possibility  that  anything  might  call  for  a  re- 
consideration of  the  principles  themselves.  This  evidence 
confirmed  Hester's  impression  that  there  must  be  something 
wrong  in  conventionalities  which  so  jealously  resented  inspec- 
tion. 

Xo  further  demonstration  was  necessary  of  her  guardian's 
insuperable  prejudice;  but  Hester  feared  that  she  might  not 
have  another  so  favorable  opportunity  to  talk  with  him  at 
leisure,  and  she  hoped  that  at  worst  his  opposition  would 
sharpen  her  conclusions.  Her  short  experience  in  the  Bureau 
of  Charities  had  put  a  keen  edge  upon  her  zeal  to  get  a  more 
definite  account  of  her  place  in  the  world ;  and  Mr.  Lyon's  as- 
sertion that  there  could  be  no  appeal  from  business  rules 
struck  her  as  a  type  of  fatalism  which  was  not  only  arrogant 
but  improbable.  The  one  reverse  which  she  had  received  dur- 
ing the  interview  was  a  sense  of  the  hopele.s.sness  of  modifying 
her  guardian's  opinions.  She  realized  that  he  had  a  concep- 
tion of  the  world  which  nothing  was  likely  to  alter,  and  her 
suspicion  was  approaching  certainty  that  it  was  a  conception 
which  pitted  itself  against  the  final  laws  of  human  progress. 
She  had  not  yet  formed  the  distinct  judgment  that  her  guard- 
ian's contention  was  pathetic.  She  was  merely  aware  in  a 
vague  way  of  a  new  foreboding  that  the  destiny  she  was  try- 
ing to  make  out  for  herself  would  be  doom  for  him. 

These  were  but  a  moment's  flash-light  impressions,  and 
merely  the  accompaniment  of  Hester's  indecision  whether  to 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


continue  a  quest  which  was  bound  to  be  ineffectual.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  very  uselessness  of  the  attempt  was  a  discov- 
ery in  itself.  It  marked  one  fixed  point  of  departure  m  her 
life  problem.  It  was  a  term  in  the  calculation  of  her  proper 
course.  She  did  not  pause  long  enough  to  indicate  that  she 
was  balancing  alternatives.  She  showed  no  sign  of  recogniz- 
ing the  reproof  and  warning  in  Mr.  Lyon's  last  words.  As  if 
unconscious  of  a  changed  tone  in  the  discussion,  she  pursued 
the  calm  course  of  her  inquiry. 

"Before  I  was  quite  readv  for  it.  Uncle  David,  we  have  gone 
over  to  my  second  question.  I'm  afraid  I  shall  succeed  only 
in  convincing  you  that  I  am  incorrigible.  But  let  me  go  on 
as  though  the  first  question  had  been  settled.  Suppose  we 
have  accounted  for  Papa.  I  am  unable  to  see  how  that  justifies 
me  Suppose  it  was  true  that  my  father  was  entitled  to  his 
profits  for  life  because  his  labor  and  his  capital  earned  them. 
But  fnvino-  myself  the  most  liberal  interpretation  I  can  think 
of  the  only  work  I  have  ever  done  was  as  Papa's  companion 
for  a  few  years,  after  he  had  spent  several  times  as  many  years 
as  my  preceptor.  Then  it  might  be  said  that,  for  a  tew 
months,  I  was  his  untrained  nurse.  If  I  had  saved  all  the 
wages  earned  in  that  way  at  usual  rates,  the  whole  would 
amount  to  much  les.'^  than  my  present  income  every  month; 
while  girls  of  my  age  who  are  skilled  workers  m  their  trades 
can  never  earn  a  fraction  of  my  income.  Po  you  really  ex- 
pect me  to  believe  that  you  justify  such  a  contrast  by  saying 
that  property  is  sacred?  It  seems  to  me  that  justice  is  more 
sacred  than  property.  As  I  understand  it,  the  system  of  ar- 
rangements which  the  word  property  really  means  is  a  col- 
lection of  attempts  to  do  justice ;  but  if  we  find  that  these  ar- 
rangements fail  to  do  justice,  then  they  look  to  me  no  longer 
sacred  but  stupid."  r,      •     t,- 

David  Lyon  would  no  more  have  wronged  another  m  his 
property  knowing  his  act  to  be  wrong,  than  he  would  have  as- 
saulted a  member  of  his  family.  He  would  as  soon  have  con- 
spired to  overthrow  the  moral  law  not  to  lie,  or  steal  or  kill,  as 
he  would  have  condoned  an  evasion  of  justice  as  he  under- 
stood it  But  he  was  honestlv  at  the  limit  of  his  intelligence 
when  called  unon  for  credentials  of  his  right  and  wrong.  It 
was  as  though' he  had  been  challenged  to  show  cause  why  up 
is  up  and  down  is  down.  To  Mr.  Lyon  "pro])erty,"  ".uisticc. 
"morality"  and  the  like,  were  words  that  stood  for  the  abso- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


lute  and  uiu'liangeablc  nature  of  things.  He  wa.s  by  no  means 
a  stranger  to  the  great  historians,  but  whenever  he  had  read 
of  past  events  he  had  ahvays  judged  the  actors  by  the  rules 
whit'h  he  would  ai)ply  to  his  own  conduct.  These  rules  seemed 
to  him  to  require  right  because  it  was  right,  and  he  knew  of 
no  more  searching  reason.  He  would  have  denounced  it  as 
vicious  trifling  with  words,  if  he  had  been  told  that  what  we 
call  right  is  only  opinion,  as  strong  or  as  weak  as  the  reasons 
upon  which  it  rests.  The  proposition  that  right  is  always  an 
adaptation  to  circumstances,  and  that  any  alleged  right  is 
essentially  right  in  the  degree  of  the  fitness  of  its  adaptation, 
would  have  seemed  to  him  sheer  repudiation  of  morality.  He 
knew  well  enough  that  the  laws  of  property  in  different  ages 
and  countries  had  varied  in  detail,  but  he  had  never  realized 
that  more  than  one  basis  of  property  institutions  is  conceivable, 
nor  had  he  ever  comprehended  that  property  is  assentially  the 
specifications  of  a  bargain  under  which  persons  consent  to  live 
together.  He  had  made  no  allowance  for  the  fact  that  many 
of  the  persons  so  acquiescing  had  practically  no  other  alter- 
native ;  nor  had  he  considered  that  the  same  balancing  of  in- 
terests which  once  made  the  laws  of  property  would  be  continu- 
ing precisely  the  same  proccvss  if  it  reconstructed  those  laws 
when  the  social  value  of  interests  had  changed.  An  assertion 
that  the  institutions  of  property  are  liable  to  modification 
whenever  the  conviction  prevails  that  the  terms  are  less  favor- 
able for  some  than  for  other  parties  concerned,  would  to  his 
mind  have  meant  plain  anarchy. 

Mr.  Lyon  had  never  distinguished  between  the  abstract 
moral  principle  that  every  one  is  entitled  to  his  own,  and  the 
particular  application  of  the  principle  in  a  given  system  of 
property.  It  had  never  occurred  to  him,  and  he  could  not 
have  entertained  the  idea,  that  a  property  system  is  merely 
an  organization  of  human  opinions  about  what  ought  to  be 
regarded  as  each  one's  own.  In  his  view  the  political  device 
was  as  sacred  as  the  supporting  moral  principle,  because  he 
had  never  harbored  a  doubt  that  they  were  identical.  More- 
over, to  his  way  of  thinking,  rights  were  inalienable  endow- 
ments of  indi\nduals.  They  were  features  of  the  divine  image 
in  which  man  was  created,  and  as  unalterable  as  the  archetype 
itself.  Property,  as  he  \dewed  it,  was  simply  those  pre-estab- 
lished rights  recognized  and  guaranteed  by  law.  Property 
was  therefore  sacred  because  the  rights  were  sacred ;  and  it  was 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


a  sign  of  something  wrong  in  anyone's  make-up  who  would 
imply  that  property  is  impeachable. 

To  be  sure,  Mr.  Lyon  had  been  quite  consistent  with  one 
phase  of  himself  in  admitting  that  the  institutions  of  property 
worked  anomalies  and  hardships.  He  was  equally  sincere, 
however,  in  classing  these  accidents  with  the  other  mysterious 
orderings  of  Providence,  and  even  more  rigid  in  his  belief  that 
they  must  be  accepted  as  such.  All  distresses  from  lack  or 
loss  of  property  seemed  to  him,  like  pain,  disease,  and  death, 
inscrutable  dispensations.  He  wished  they  were  not  accidents 
of  the  human  lot.  Quite  in  accord  with  the  similar  clause  in 
Halleck's  creed,  he  was  willing  to  admit  that  his  faith  in  God 
would  be  easier  if  they  did  not  occur;  but  he  was  sure  it 
amounted  to  one  and  the  same  thing  whether  we  blamed 
property,  for  its  share  in  them,  or  Providence.  The  dilemma 
which  Hester  had  presented  affected  him,  therefore,  merely 
as  a  querulous  complaint  against  the  divine  government.  He 
was  too  strongly  intrenched  in  his  religious  beliefs,  and  in  the 
conventional  morality  which  they  protected,  to  be  disturbed 
in  his  confidence  that  they  could  not  be  thrown  on  the  defen- 
sive by  collision  with  facts.  He  was  shocked  and  grieved  that 
Hester  could  actually  make  a  virtue  of  impatience  with  the 
Supreme  Wisdom ;  yet  his  paternal  fondness  promptly  filed 
the  excuse  that  her  experience  had  been  too  limited  for  ef- 
ficient schooling  in  humility  and  reverence. 

The  two  younger  men  detected  rather  clearly  the  remoter 
bearings  of  Mr.  Lyon's  perplexity.  Edgerly  had  a  hundred 
times  analyzed  with  his  classes  the  general  situation  of  which 
his  father-in-law  was  a  symptom.  While  he  listened  he  had 
found  himself  dramatizing  the  dialogue  as  an  encounter  of  a 
passing  and  a  coming  world-spirit.  For  years  he  had  taught 
that  ideas  still  gripped  business  practice  which  more  penetrat- 
ing philosophy  had  dismissed  as  archaic.  He  credited  in  Mr. 
Lyon  all  that  was  worthiest  in  presumptions  fairly  appropriate 
to  a  simpler  period;  but  insistence  on  them,  in  spite  of  chang- 
ing conditions,  affected  Edgerly  as  a  forlorn  hope  of  barricad- 
ing the  sunrise.  By  contrast,  the  impulse  and  the  insight  of 
Hester's  ingenuous  reflection  of  the  world  as  .she  .saw  it  im- 
pressed him  more  as  confirmation  than  as  consequence  of 
the  dawning  perceptions. 

Logan  Lyon's  interest  had  been  wholly  curious  at  first.  As 
the  immediate  practical  bearing  of  Hester's  questionings  pre- 

279 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


sented  itself  he  had  tried  to  think  of  them  in  their  business  re- 
lations, and  to  oive  thoni  a  rati  no;  at  their  strictly  logical  value. 
Instead  of  making  for  an  abstract  judgment,  however,  this 
attempt  at  a  severely  judicial  hearing  had  passed  rapidly  into 
an  emotional  attitude.  Lyon  had  never  served  formal  notice 
on  himself  that  the  girl  he  had  so  long  treated  as  a  precocious 
infant  was  already  beyond  classification  as  a  child.  Viewing 
her  impersonally,  considering  her  argument  as  he  w^ould  a 
contention  in  court,  following  her  method  of  thinking,  he  re- 
corded his  first  distinct  observation  that  Hester  had  become  a 
woman.  Her  mind  was  not  merely  responding  to  casual 
stimuli.  She  w^as  not  merely  receptive  and  acquiescent  and 
imitative.  She  w^as  selecting,  and  correlating,  and  judging 
and  estimating. 

But  this  impromptu  psychological  analysis  served  only  as 
a  brief  introduction  to  a  personal  reaction.  "WTien  he  w^as  at 
the  point  of  submitting  in  rebuttal  his  ultimatum  of  unavail- 
ability, Lyon  w^as  checked  by  strange  stirrings  of  feelings 
that  with  Hester's  spirit  as  an  impulse  the  frontiers  of  availa- 
bility might  be  indefinitely  advanced.  With  the  suggestion, 
his  whole  scheme  of  life  seemed  to  come  up  for  audit.  He  had 
a  moment's  view^  of  it  against  a  background  of  alternatives 
W'hich  he  had  never  considered.  He  wondered  w^hether  he  w^as 
affected  more  by  disgTist  with  what  was  or  by  desire  for  what 
might  be.  He  was  sure  only  that  his  attention  had  shifted 
from  the  questions  to  the  questioner.  Instead  of  interposing 
an  objection  which  might  have  embarrassed  Hester,  he  hoped 
to  help  her  express  herself  more  fully  by  submitting  the 
querj^: — "As  we  are  all  in  the  same  class,  Hester,  so  far  as 
drawing  dividends  beside  our  salaries,  what  do  you  see  for  us 
to  do  to  make  ourselves  less  troublesome?" 

Hester  wished  she  knew  more  of  Logan  on  the  business  side. 
He  had  always  been  good  fun  as  a  teasing  big  brother.  She 
believed  in  him  heartily  up  to  the  point  w^here  she  began  to 
regret  him  as  probably  a  too  faithful  copy  of  his  father.  As 
Logan  had  kept  his  professional  equation  w^iolly  out  of  her 
view,  she  had  no  evidence  that  he  tended  to  vary  more  from 
his  father's  opinions  than  from  his  character.  She  had  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  his  question  w^as  an  exception  to  his 
quizzical  habit,  and  wdth  the  faintest  parrying  smile  she  still 
directed  her  appeal  to  her  g-uardian. 

280 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


"If  I  am  repeating  the  same  thing,  Uncle  David,  it  is  be- 
cause I  am  trying  to  find  the  plainest  words  for  my  idea.  Let 
me  tell  it  this  way : — A  great  many  kinds  of  people  must  work 
together  to  create  a  business.  Some  of  them  contribute  un- 
skilled labor  of  their  hands;  some  of  them  skilled  labor  of 
their  hands;  some  labor  of  their  brains;  some,  like  you  and 
Papa,  not  only  labor  of  hand  and  brain,  but  special  supervis- 
ion and  wise  judgment,  without  w^hich  all  the  rest  of  the  work 
might  be  unsuccessful ;  and  still  other  people  have  helped  by 
putting  into  the  hands  of  these  workers  some  of  their  wealth 
to  be  changed  into  new  forms  of  wealth.  Is  it  not  plain  truth 
that  all  these  kinds  of  contribution  were  necessary  to  make 
the  business?  Could  it  have  been  created  by  one  kind  alone? 
Up  to  the  paying  stage,  has  there  not  been  a  necessary  part- 
nership of  all  the  makers  of  the  business?  But  what  happens 
after  the  business  is  made?  Do  the  persons  who  have  con- 
tributed work  only,  either  of  hand  or  brain,  retain  their  rat- 
ing as  partners?  Are  they  not  mere  hired  help?  Those  who 
are  supposed  to  have  contributed  wealth,  with  or  wdthout 
work  besides,  are  now  the  only  partners,  are  they  not?  They 
own  the  business.  They  are  the  business.  After  the  hired 
workers  have  received  their  pay,  and  the  other  costs  are  cov- 
ered, these  contributors  of  capital  claim  all  the  output  that  is 
left,  with  all  the  added  value  that  comes  from  many  sources 
outside  the  business.  If  the  business  turns  out  to  be  as  pros- 
perous as  the  Avery  Company,  every  ten  years  or  so,  although 
these  partners  have  collected  from  the  business  every  year  a 
high  rate  of  interest,  they  divide  among  themselves  a  surplus 
equal  to  the  whole  amount  of  their  previous  principal.  None 
of  the  other  partners,  except  these  controllers  of  the  preferred 
factor  of  capital,  have  any  voice  or  share  in  this  distribution, 
but  why  should  one  class  of  partners  in  its  production  be  en- 
titled to  dispose  of  it  and  not  all  the  others?" 

This  time  Logan  Lyon  deliberately  rode  for  a  fall.  He 
was  sure  he  could  provoke  a  reply  that  would  bring  out  Hes- 
ter's version  more  distinctly.  In  his  most  serious  maimer  he 
protested: — ''But,  Hester,  haven't  all  these  other  people  had 
their  pay  at  market  rates?" 

"Yes,  Logan,"  Hester  sighed,  and  the  hardly  perceptible 
depression  of  light  in  her  face  told  him  that  she  could  find 
less  palliation  for  his  tardiness  than  for  her  father's,  "let  us 
hope  that  they  had,  always  including  the  money-lenders.  For 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


that  very  reason,  if  full  market  rates  of  pay  to  all  eoiicerned 
have  still  left  a  surplus  undivided,  wliy  should  it  belong  to 
one  group  of  its  producers  rather  than  to  all?"' 

Hester  had  scarcely  glanced  at  Logan  in  replying  to  his 
question,  and  was  still  apparently  consulting  only  his  father. 

"But  there  are  some  more  questions,  Uncle  David.  If  we 
had  come  from  another  planet,  which  had  only  the  laws  of  the 
])hysical  universe  in  common  with  ours,  is  it  not  possible  that 
we  might  be  astonished  at  this  arrangement?  Might  we  not 
say  that  it  was  largely  a  clumsy  make-shift,  and  that  it  cor- 
responded only  in  the  roughest  way  with  the  elements  of  jus- 
tice involved  in  the  case?  Might  we  not  decide  at  once  that 
this  treatment  of  great  numbers  of  the  makers  of  the  business 
as  not-partners,  and  the  reservation  of  partnership  rights  for 
a  favored  section  of  the  makers,  was  arbitrary?  Might  we 
not  prophesy  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  that 
led  to  such  unfair  arrangements,  they  could  never  perma- 
nently satisfy  rational  beings,  and  that  removal  of  the  in- 
justices would  begin  as  soon  as  people  reached  a  high  grade 
of  intelligence?  It  may  be  I  have  lived  as  far  from  your  busi- 
ness world  as  though  I  had  been  on  another  planet.  Any- 
way, the  appearance  it  presents  in  the  glimpses  I  am  getting 
is  chiefly  amateurish." 

By  this  time  Mr.  Lyon  had  dismissed  the  thought  of  cor- 
recting these  vagaries  at  once.  He  was  so  convinced  of  his 
helplessness  that  he  had  given  up  the  attempt  to  instruct,  and 
was  merely  following  anxious  curiosity  to  draw  out  any  un- 
spoken reserve  in  Hester's  ideas.  "Most  business  men  are  on 
the  lookout  for  ways  to  improve  their  methods,"  he  protested 
with  an  effort  at  humor,  "and  would  be  willing  to  pay  liberal 
royalties  to  anyone  who  could  show  them  how  to  become  less 
amateurish." 

"One  of  our  modern  engineers  would  call  the  pyramid- 
builders  amateurish,  would  he  not,  Uncle  David,"  and  because 
she  well  knew  how  her  confession  had  hurt  her  guardian 
Hester  tried  to  speak  soothingly ;  "although  he  might  not  be 
able  to  tell  how  the  knowledge  and  tools  at  their  disposal 
could  have  been  used  more  skillfully?  As  a  stranger  from 
another  world,  I  must  respect  the  skill  applied  in  your  eco- 
nomic system,  yet  I  must  be  frank  enough  to  say  that  it  seems 
to  me  an  impossibly  boori.sh  system." 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


''Do  not  spare  the  particulars,  Hester,"  sadly  exhorted  Mr. 
Lyon. 

''Why,"  continued  Hester,  "I  should  suppose  that  things 
are  worth  what  they  are  worth  in  serving  people.  As  I  un- 
derstand your  economic  system,  it  makes  people  altogether 
subordinate  to  capital.  Does  not  such  an  inversion  of  values 
make  the  system  essentially  savage  and  superstitious?" 

Hester  did  not  at  the  moment  remember  that  she  had  used 
one  of  Graham's  phrases.  She  had  consciously  enough,  and 
often,  thought  over  his  arguments,  but  her  concurrence  with 
them  had  been  endorsement  rather  than  absorption.  She 
was  really  trying  to  find  a  view-point  of  her  own,  and  her 
method  would  have  been  telling  evidence  against  the  imita- 
tion theory  in  social  psychology.  Her  sense  of  loneliness  in 
this  search  had  grown  more  oppressive  with  every  gain  in 
clearness  of  vision.  She  had  not  yet  made  out  that  not  Gra- 
ham alone,  but  Halleck  and  Edgerly  and  even  Logan  Lyon 
were  moving  from  different  starting  points  toward  the  same 
outlook ;  and  her  very  devotion  to  the  individual  problem,  to- 
gether with  her  feeling  of  solitude  in  the  pursuit,  retarded 
her  perception  that  Mr.  Lyon  represented  a  declining  phase 
of  the  world-order,  and  that  her  forereaching  was  merely  one 
among  innumerable  signs  of  the  latest  human  awakening. 

"If  what  you  call  'an  inversion  of  values'  could  really  be 
brought  home  to  it,  I  should  have  to  accept  the  impeachment," 
Mr.  Lyon  provisionally  admitted. 

"But  can  what  we  have  agreed  to  about  the  facts  of  the 
system  have  any  other  meaning  than  an  inversion  of  values?" 
pleaded  Hester.  "If  we  frankly  invent  fairy  stories,  the  more 
fanciful  they  are  the  better,  because  they  set  out  to  be  a  com- 
l^lete  vacation  from  hard  realities.  But  I  have  always  resented 
such  mixtures  of  fact  and  fable,  of  gods  and  men,  as  Homer's 
description  of  the  siege  of  Troy,  for  instance.  It  affects  me 
as  tantalizing  sane  reason  to  credit  men  with  heroic  exploits 
and  then,  just  as  their  deeds  are  about  to  achieve  their  natural 
ends,  to  interpose  actors  who  are  independent  of  rational  cause 
and  effect,  and  make  them  defeat  the  results.  But  I  can  see  no 
more  superstition  in  mixing  up  mythical  gods  with  a  Greek 
tribal  conflict  than  in  your  making  a  person  out  of  capital 
and  allowing  it  to  nullify  the  rational  relations  between 
laborers." 

283 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


"Your  Greek  is  gurely  Greek  to  me,  Hester;"  and  Mr. 
T.yon's  inahility  to  see  any  pertinence  in  the  parallel  was  not 
feigned.  ''I  can  think  of  nothing  that  calls  for  such  a  com- 
parison." 

"Have  patience  with  me  just  a  moment  longer,  Uncle 
David," — Hester  was  not  happy  in  wounding  her  guardian, 
luit  she  was  obeying  a  strengthening  sense  of  obligation  to  be 
genuine  toward  the  problems  she  was  facing, — "and  I  will  say 
it  in  only  one  more  way.  It  seems  to  me  as  plain  as  the  lawn 
and  trees  and  lake  before  our  eyes  that  we  should  make  the 
world  better  if  we  were  willing  to  accept  the  consequences  of 
some  very  simple  facts.  Is  it  not  clear  that  life  is  just  people 
learning  how  to  live  together  so  as  to  help  out  one  another 
most  in  turning  nature  to  their  uses?  Are  not  people  and 
nature  the  only  real  factors  in  the  problem?  AVhen  we  have 
worked  together  long  enough  to  have  government  and  laws 
and  beliefs  and  business,  are  any  new  factors  really  con- 
cerned? Is  it  not  an  illusion  if  we  imagine  that  these  varia- 
tions are  anything  more  than  combinations  of  the  work  of 
nature  and  of  people?  Can  any  business  possibly  be  an  ex- 
ception to  this  rule?  Is  not  a  business  merely  means  that 
nature  affords,  fitted  by  some  people's  work  to  furnish  their 
share  of  the  exchanges  by  which  all  the  people  in  the  world 
satisfy  their  wants?  Is  there  any  sanction  in  unspoiled  rea- 
son for  excluding  from  a  business  some  of  the  persons  who 
have  created  it,  and  giving  their  places  to  this  upstart  ficti- 
tious person,  Capital?  Have  not  the  people  who  put  their 
lives  into  the  business  made  themselves  more  a  part  of  it  than 
those  who  merely  put  in  their  money?  Can  a  system  built  on 
the  contrary  assumption  be  anything  but  an  accumulation  of 
accidents?  Is  it  not  a  complete  inversion  of  values,  a  jugglery 
of  greedy  force,  a  conspiracy  to  consecrate  wrong,  if  we  try 
to  perpetuate  this  structure  of  fictions  in  the  place  of  nature?" 

Mr.  Lyon  was  entirely  free  from  misgivings  in  classing 
H&ster's  ideals  as  a  somewhat  more  advanced  variation  of  cry- 
ing for  the  moon.  Upon  that  supposition  he  was  wise  in  pre- 
suming that  experience  would  be  the  best  teacher,  and  he 
restricted  himself  to  the  incredulous  prediction,  "As  you  grow 
older,  Hester,  you  will  probably  learn  that  there  are  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  putting  our  preferences  in  the  place  of  the 
plan  the  world  was  built  on." 

284 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    NOVICE 


Hester  refrained  from  reminding  her  guardian  that  he  was 
again  begging  the  question,  but  she  saw  more  plainly  than 
ever  that  the  clue  to  the  difference  between  them  was  his  ina- 
bility to  conceive  that  anything  remained  to  be  discovered 
about  the  world's  workings.  She  offered  larger  bonds  than 
she  was  aware  for  the  lawfulness  of  her  thinking,  when  she 
further  confessed: — 

"I  acknowledge  I  have  no  idea  how  far  it  is  pos- 
sible to  go  at  once  toward  changing  capitalistic  business  into 
human  business.  Perhaps  it  may  require  an  era  merely  to 
install  the  belief  that  this  is  the  next  great  problem.  It  may 
be  that  evangelizing  the  world  with  such  a  gospel  would  be 
salvation  enough  for  one  epoch.  I'm  afraid  I  shall  not  be  a 
patient  waiter  for  the  fruits  of  this  righteousness  till  all  the 
world  has  received  its  seeds.  Such  a  religion  ought  to  begin 
early  to  be  justified  bj^  its  works  as  it  goes  along.  At  all 
events,  if  I  understand  Mr.  Graham,  he  is  simply  a  prophet 
of  this  faith.  He  is  not  an  enemy  of  business.  He  wants 
business  to  make  itself  more  human  by  repudiating  an  irra- 
tional principle.  He  insists  that  every  worker  in  every  busi- 
ness shall  be  recognized  as  a  partner  in  the  busine&s,  with  his 
proportionate  share  of  property  in  the  business  and  influence 
upon  its  policy.  He  does  not  profess  to  know  how  the  pro- 
portions of  property  and  influence  will  be  worked  out.  He 
claims  only  that  the  next  move  toward  fixing  these  propor- 
tions must  be  admission  of  the  neglected  principle.  So  much 
at  least  he  demands  now  in  the  name  of  justice,  and  all  the 
facts  that  I  can  see  tell  me  he  is  right." 

For  several  minutes  Edith  Edgerly  had  been  standing  be- 
hind her  father,  her  hands  resting  caressingly  on  his  shoul- 
ders, and  as  it  seemed  to  her  husband,  instinctively  guarding 
Mr.  Lyon  against  something  impending.  Edith  was  nearer 
than  Mrs.  Lyon  to  thinking  and  feeling  as  Hester  did;  but 
quicker  sense  of  the  crushing  meaning  which  submission  to 
such  valuations  would  have  for  one  man,  than  of  the  advance 
it  would  mark  for  other  men,  spurred  wife  and  daughter 
alike  to  silent  resentment.  While  absorbed  in  her  inquest, 
Hester  had  not  failed  to  regret  the  tension  in  their  family 
circle,  yet  she  did  not  doubt  that  it  was  unavoidable.  It 
seemed  merely  a  reduced  reflection  of  the  business  conflict. 
She  saw  no  hope  that  the  one  could  disappear  without  the 
other ;  but  she  was  in  doubt  whether  her  skirmishing  had  more 

285 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    NOVICE 


advanced  or  retarded  the  adjustment  of  cither  situation ;  and 
no  one  in  the  group  felt  more  relief  in  following  Logan's 
timelv  call  for  a  sail  in  the  launch  before  sunset. 


286 


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THE   PRICE  OF  PROGRESS 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


XVII 
THE   PRICE   OF   PROGRESS 

"We  should  have  no  saving  of  life  by  means  of  the  operating 
room  if  some  one  hadn't  the  nerve  to  cause  suffering  for 
the  sake  of  relieving  it." 

MRS.  LYON  alone  remained  at  The  Lodge.  The  rest  of 
the  party  took  the  early  Monday  morning  train  for  the 
city,  with  the  understanding  that  if  the  weather  held  good  all 
would  return  for  one  more  Sunday  at  the  Lake.  Mr.  Lyon 
planned  to  take  his  meals  at  the  Club  and  to  sleep  at  Logan's 
apartments.  Hester  was  visiting  Elsie.  The  schedule  for  the 
week  was  rather  crowded,  but  nothing  was  in  sight  to  show 
that  the  season's  conflict  was  nearing  a  decision. 

The  Edgerlys  consorted  with  a  University  coterie  who 
called  themselves  The  Riffraff.  They  had  been  drawn  to- 
gether by  miscellaneous  attractions.  Before  they  were  fully 
aware  of  their  affinities,  Fessenden  of  the  economic  depart- 
ment observed  that  they  were  what  the  sociologists  would  call 
a  group;  and  he  explained  that  the  reason  why  sociologists 
existed  w^as  that  there  were  a  few  things  left  not  worth  any- 
one's else  attention.  The  members  of  the  bunch  scorned  to 
inquire  whether  the  joke  was  on  the  sociologists  or  them- 
selves ;  but  from  that  hour  they  began  to  have  a  group-con- 
sciousness, which  they  afterwards  learned  was  also  sociolog- 
ical. Without  deliberation  for  or  against,  and  without  sur- 
veying themselves  in  the  abstract,  as  we  are  viewing  them, 
they  spontaneously  assumed  the  function  of  academic  safety- 
valve.  They  admitted  that  they  were  a  providential  pro- 
vision against  the  pressure  of  too  protracted  and  pervasive 
profundity.  Their  operations  were  not  reduced  to  rule.  They 
mostly  happened.  When  human  nature  could  endure  no 
longer,  they  fell  back  on  reversion  to  type.  Their  only  plan 
was  to  have  no  plan,  but  to  vary  their  recuperations  according 
to  a  general  law  of  non-conformity.  They  descended  upon 
one  another's  abodes  in  designedly  irregular  rotation.  Usu- 
ally by  themselves,  but  occasionally  for  the  redemption  of  a 
wider  University  constituency,  they  behaved  like  naughty 
boys  getting  even  with  parole-officialing  academic  dignity. 

291 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


The  old  guard  of  the  group  numbered  exactly  twenty.  As 
many  more  had  been  recruited  from  time  to  time.  They 
were  the  men  and  women  of  the  academic  community  who 
had  the  most  compatible  and  infectious  gifts  of  laughter  or 
its  proxies,  and  the  temper  to  make  them  restorative  and 
tonic.  They  were  no  close  corporation.  Their  boundaries 
were  adjustable.  Within  the  circle  indeed  were  two  or  three 
pairs  of  feudists  who  departmentally  were  always  at  each 
other's  throats,  but  in  the  group  atmosphere  professional  ani- 
mosities were  as  evanescent  as  professors'  salaries.  The  Riff- 
raff merged  with  everything  non-vocational  about  the  Uni- 
versity, and  once  or  twice  a  year  it  managed  to  fuse  the  whole 
faculty  body  for  an  hour  or  two  into  a  mass  of  homogeneous 
good-fellowship. 

This  time  the  call  had  read : — 

The  EiflFrafF  collects  with  the  Edgerlys  Monday  evening. 
Committee  of  the  whole  to  consider  the  state  of  the  Universe. 

Mrs.  Edgerly  had  asked  Hester  and  Elsie.  They  came  for 
dinner  too ;  and  the  table  talk  was  largely  biographic  of  the 
more  salient  personalities  to  be  expected. 

It  was  not  like  the  usual  rallies  of  The  Riffraff.  The  com- 
bined effort  to  relax  placed  no  net  result  to  its  credit  beyond 
general  disclosure  of  unreconciled  temper  toward  social  con- 
ditions. Vacation  was  just  over,  it  is  true,  and  ''the  strain  of 
toil,  the  stress  of  care"  had  not  yet  told  to  the  reacting  point. 

The  real  reason,  however,  w^as  subtler.  Along  with  the 
smoke  and  the  Stock  Yards'  aroma,  the  strike  streaked  the 
University  atmosphere.  And  it  was  not  with  the  surface 
effect  of  dust  that  a  tuft  of  feathers  whisks  from  its  lodgment. 
It  was  the  drain  of  virus  in  the  blood.  The  Edgerlys  were 
the  only  University  family  with  a  negotiable  interest  in  the 
labor  issue,  but  it  w^ould  have  been  hard  to  find  a  member  of 
the  faculties  who  was  not  brooding  over  the  situation  as 
though  it  were  his  immediate  individual  affair.  Few  of  them 
had  definite  and  organized  opinions  that  would  go  far  as  a 
basis  of  settlement.  They  had  rather  desultor^^  and  disquietr 
ing  feelings,  fine  scruples  that  this,  that  and  the  other  aspect 
of  the  case  on  either  side  ought  not  so  to  be,  compunctions 
that  the  morals  on  trial  were  vulgarly  under  grade,  but  withal 
a  curiously  concerted  certainty  of  dogmatic  imprecision  that 
somebody  ought  to  do  something. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


David  Lyon's  vocabulary  would  not  have  enabled  him  to 
characterize  this  state  of  mind  as  a  coincidence  of  neuras- 
thenic parallels.  If  he  had  known  where  to  borrow  the  terms, 
and  had  been  advised  of  the  occasion  for  their  use,  he  would 
doubtless  have  employed  them  promptly.  He  would  thus 
have  satisfied  his  conscience  without  unparliamentary  divulg- 
ings.  In  spirit,  too,  he  would  have  represented  most  of  his 
directors,  but  they  would  have  troubled  themselves  less  about 
non-conducting  language. 

Yet  the  diagnosis  would  have  quite  misconstrued  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  academic  sentiment.  Only  a  small  fraction 
of  the  University  community  had  given  more  than  layman's 
attention  to  labor  j^roblems,  from  the  standpoint  either  of  the 
business  man  or  of  the  social  theorists;  yet  almost  without 
exception  the  faculty  men  reacted  to  social  conflicts  as 
promptly  as  temperature  to  the  sundown.  Without  an  articu- 
late account  of  it,  they  were  accepting  themselves  as  parts  of 
a  social  conscience  in  the  making.  As  a  result  of  influences 
which  they  could  not  have  scheduled,  they  were  forming  the 
habit  of  looking  at  themselves  as  among  the  responsible  ])ar- 
ties  behind  all  the  good  or  evil  of  society.  Though  they  had 
no  ready  cures  for  moral  ills,  they  were  fast  shedding  the 
shame  of  secretiveness  about  the  ills'  existence.  Their  in- 
stinct was  becoming  declarative  that  a  breakdown  anywhere 
in  the  social  process  was  not  wholly,  nor  perhaps  mostly,  a  re- 
fusal of  individuals  to  keep  faith  with  the  social  order;  but 
more  a  probable  case  against  the  intelligence  of  the  ways  in 
which  society  was  trying  to  work.  For  David  Lyon's  kind 
to  despise  the  symptomatic  value  of  such  people,  was  as  fatu- 
ous as  it  would  be  to  deny  their  competence  to  ring  in  an 
alarm,  because  they  didn't  belong  to  the  flre  department. 

When  an  individual  has  gone  wrong  there  may  be  some 
hope  of  bringing  him  back  by  ridicule.  When  it  is  a  whole 
industrial  system,  ridicule  has  the  effect  of  much  ado  about 
nothing,  till  particular  persons  can  be  haled  before  the  bar 
of  public  opinion,  charged  with  specific  and  recognized  trans- 
gressions. 

The  fly  in  the  ointment  of  The  Riffraff  was  invisible  to  the 
naked  eye,  and  this  was  the  prime  unsettling  of  their  spirits. 
That  the  economic  process  in  Chicago  was  nearing  halt  on  a 
dead  center,  was  plain  enough.  That  civilized  industries  were 
not  beyond  liability  to  such  arrest,  was  sad  enough.    But  the 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


worry  to  the  dispassionate  observer  was  that  no  distingiiish- 
ahle  iiuliviihials  were  in  sight  to  whom  it  could  fairly  be  said, 
"Thou  art  the  man!"'  No  corporation  in  tlic  country  had  a 
more  spotless  reputation  than  the  Avery  Company.  Its 
oflicers  and  hirgest  stockholders  w^re  among  the  people  of 
whom  Chicago  was  proudest.  On  the  other  hand,  the  more 
tlie  strike  loadei's  pres'^ed  their  case,  the  stronger  the  set  of 
public  opinion  toward  Ilallcck's  early  conclusions. 

University  sentiment  was  more  sensitive  than  that  of  the 
general  public  to  both  sides  of  the  dilemma.  There  was  a 
stealthy  feeling  that  a  social  deadlock  was  somehow  a  contra- 
diction in  the  logic  of  life.  There  was  half-conscious  confes- 
sion of  humiliation  and  guilt  at  inabilit}^  to  speak  the  Avord 
that  might  expose  the  flaw  in  the  reasoning  and  start  up  action 
along  its  rational  course. 

This  sense  of  incompetence  gave  the  y)itch  for  the  evening. 

Seymour,  one  of  the  biologists,  was  the  first  to  arrive,  and 
he  brought  Graham  as  his  guest.  He  would  not  have  gone  so 
far  without  an  accomplice.  It  was  Hester's  work ;  and  her 
private  reasons  went  back  to  Graham  the  individual,  not  the 
Institution.  She  had  urged  Seymour  to  come  early,  promis- 
ing to  be  answ^erable  for  the  consequences.  Seymour  and 
Graham  had  roomed  in  the  same  hall  for  three  years  at  Har- 
vard. Between  the  alternatives  of  conflict  and  complement 
open  to  such  oppositas  they  had  accomplished  a  durable  nat- 
ural selection  of  the  latter.  Hester's  suggestion  to  Seymour, 
who  was  a  long-time  friend,  had  been  that  Logan  Lyon  would 
be  invited  by  his  sister;  and  that  a  meeting,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, might  do  something  indirectly  toward  settling 
the  strike.  If  the  argument  was  ingenuous  in  its  substance, 
it  was  slightly  overdrawn  in  its  sanguineness,  and  besides  that 
it  was  surreptitiously  advanced  several  numbers  in  the  rating. 
In  this  particular  connection,  the  strike  was  in  fact  quite  inci- 
dental to  Hester's  more  personal  purposes. 

Halleck,  whom  Edgerly  had  invited,  w^as  the  only  other 
gues-t.  When  Seymour  presented  his  friend  to  Edgerly,  and 
later  to  Lyon,  it  was  "Graham  of  Han-ard,"  ''Edgerly  of 
Yale,"  "Lyon  of  Princeton."  Beyond  this  it  sufficed  that  they 
were  gentlemen.  After  Hester  felt  that  Graham  had  settled 
his  dues  to  his  hosts,  she  manoeuvered  a  topic  which  included 
the  Edgerlys  and  Seymour,  but  offered  no  inducements  to 
Graham. 

294 


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THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


The  elision  occurred  according  to  a  law  not  mentioned  by 
Grimm;  and  furthermore  the  phonetic  change  was  appar- 
ently unobserved  w^hen  Graham  detached  Elsie  from  the  dis- 
course, and  formed  a  diphthong  which  at  once  showed  capa- 
bilities of  sustaining  itself  without  adventitious  support. 

Hester's  back  was  turned,  but  she  needed  no  assurance  that 
details  were  immaterial.  With  an  introspective  withdrawal 
not  betrayed  to  the  rest  of  the  circle,  she  indulged  a  momen- 
tary reflection  that  things  were  not  so  insuperably  intractable 
after  all.  In  any  event,  her  self-imposed  function  of  media- 
tion had  been  discharged  without  announcing  itself,  and  the 
inward  reward  was  prodigally  disproportioned  to  the  visible 
merit. 

"I  wonder,  Miss  Kissinger,"  Graham  ventured,  ''if  an  out- 
lawed Institution  still  rouses  enough  curiosity  to  bring  a  neg- 
ligible individual  within  the  range  of  vision." 

''The  Institution  has  been  behaving  so  atrociously  of  late," 
Elsie  reservedly  replied,  "that  the  individual  may  perhaps 
elicit  a  degree  of  morbid  interest  from  the  thoughtless  and 
injudicious." 

"Then  the  individual  must  be  in  for  a  lonesome  time  of  it 
this  evening,"  sighed  Graham,  "unless  there  are  non-apparent 
resources  for  diluting  the  social  medium." 

They  had  taken  a  few  steps  toward  the  library  door,  and 
the  Colonial  fire-place  which  occupied  one  end  of  the  room  at 
once  stnick  Graham  as  a  strategic  position.  Without  allow- 
ing space  for  an  answer,  he  continued : — "One  of  those  chim- 
ney corners  might  possibly  take  us  back  to  the  Boston  level 
at  which  we  parted  company." 

"I  haven't  decided  yet,"  skidded  Elsie,  while  they  moved 
slowly  in  the  proposed  direction,  "whether  the  Boston  that  I 
found  had  risen  above  or  fallen  below  the  chimney  corner 
level." 

"At  this  moment,"  Graham  deposed  complaisantly,  as  they 
occupied  one  of  the  settles,  "there  is  no  room  in  my  mind  for 
doubt  that,  compared  with  a  particular  chimney  corner,  Bos- 
ton, past,  present  or  future,  is  a  sub-basement." 

Elsie  was  neither  prepared  for  a  metamorphosis  of  Graham 
into  the  ordinary  society  jollier,  nor  was  she  so  inexperienced 
as  to  attach  more  than  a  surface  meaning  to  such  speeches, 
even  from  the  most  matter-of-fact  men.  On  the  whole  the  re- 
mark affected  her  as  probably  a  made-over  from  the  student 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


repertoire,  and  it  was  distiiietly  disappointing.  Graham  in 
earnest  was  impressive.  She  feared  for  the  staying  powers  of 
the  interest  if  he  began  to  exhibit  the  marks  of  a  trier-out  of 
debutantes. 

Graham's  next  lead  was  liardly  more  fortunate: — 

''The  facts  might  easily  be  distorted  into  the  charge  that  I 
had  been  shadowing  you  and  Miss  Kinzie." 

''And  the  undistorted  facts  are?"  queried  Elsie. 

"My  program  takes  me  often  into  your  charity  district, 
and  I  have  several  times  had  to  execute  some  quick  right- 
abouts to  keep  outside  your  lines." 

"I  see."  Elsie  interpreted,  "the  Brahmin  avoids  the  Sudra's 
shadow." 

"On  the  contrary,"  amended  Graham,  "the  unsanctified 
respects  the  sanctuary.  If  the  sort  of  thing  you  are  doing 
weren't  so  futile,  it  would  be  holy." 

Elsie  was  not  sure  whether  Graham's  real  emphasis  w^as  on 
the  depreciation  or  the  praise,  but  she  left  the  move  with  him 
by  the  inquisitive  protest: — "Then  you  imagine  one's  con- 
.science  may  be  so  easy  with  its  secret  of  futilitv  that  one  needs 
to  be  taunted  with  it?" 

Graham  was  both  pleased,  and  at  the  same  time,  in  the 
classic  English  of  his  self-examination,  "stung."  He  was 
happily  surprised  by  Elsie's  insight,  but  she  made  w^hat  he 
intended  as  sincere,  if  qualified,  appreciation  look  like  brutal- 
ity. Yet  her  implied  anticipation  of  the  thought  in  his  mind 
was  a  sign  that  she  had  looked  farther  into  the  situation  than 
he  had  expected.  He  was  disgusted  with  himself  for  his  awdv- 
ward  beginning,  but  his  very  blunders  helped  him  the  sooner 
to  find  firm  footing  for  frankness.  He  was  more  like  Elsie's 
previous  astimate  of  him  w^hen  he  further  explained,  instead 
of  retracting : — 

"If  you  look  at  it  in  that  way.  Miss  Kissinger,  whether  it 
is  holy  or  not,  it  is  heroic.  I  have  come  across  plenty  of  traces 
lately  of  you  and  ]Miss  Kinzie  doing  things  fit  to  earn  you 
sainthood,  and  I  meant  to  applaud  them  heartily.  I  wish 
you  would  tell  me  though  just  what  led  from  my  w^ay  of  put- 
ting it  to  your  phrase  'secret  of  futility.'  " 

"Confessing  for  myself  costs  nothing,"  Elsie  answered  de- 
liberately, "but  I  can  speak  for  no  one  else.  You  mustn't 
infer  from  me  anything  about  Miss  Kinzie.  How  far  we 
think  alike  or  differently,  I  have  no  right  to  say.     I  don't 

296 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


mind  telling  you,  though,  that  I  have  kept  on  doing  friendly 
visiting  with  the  feeling  of  carrying  a  mangled  child  to  the 
hosj)ital  after  I  had  been  riding  in  the  machine  that  ran  him 
down.  There  would  be  some  virtue,  I  suppose,  in  making  all 
the  amends  in  my  power,  but  there  would  have  been  so  much 
more  in  preventing  the  reckless  driving." 

"Have  you  ever  carried  that  idea  over  to  the  credit  of  the 
Institution,  Miss  Kissinger?"  suggested  Graham  searchingly. 

"Why!  Mr.  Graham,"  and  Elsie  was  instantly  almost  bel- 
ligerent; "at  this  moment  the  Institution  is  the  only  reckless 
driver!  Isn't  it  just  as  bad  for  the  boy,  whether  he  is  run  over 
by  the  freight  truck  or  the  fire  engine  ?" 

"But,"  pleaded  Graham,  "you  might  have  pardoned  the 
engine  driver  for  running  over  one  child,  if  he  had  saved  the 
Iroquois  hundreds?" 

They  stopped  a  moment  to  take  bearings.  Each  picture 
seemed  plausible,  but  neither  was  satisfying.  After  adjust- 
ing her  reflections  as  well  as  she  could,  Elsie  showed  that  she 
was  puzzled  more  than  defiant,  when  she  speculated,  "Isn't 
the  answer  that  no  driver  can  be  sure  of  saving  the  hundreds, 
but  he  may  take  care  of  the  one?" 

"If  you  will  pardon  me.  Miss  Kissinger,"  Graham  resisted, 
"I  think  that  is  just  the  feminine  of  it.  It  is  emotionally  fine 
to  help  the  near  individual,  but  it  is  rationally  weak  to  mag- 
nify him  over  the  remoter  many." 

"Of  course,"  yielded  Elsie,  with  scoffing  humility,  "it  is  my 
duty  to  believe  that  the  masculine  of  it  is  the  right  of  it,  but 
sooth  to  say  I  have  never  been  so  persuaded.  The  hypothet- 
ical many  in  the  distance  may  be  worth  more  than  the  actual 
one  present,  but  reason  seems  to  me  stronger  if  it  makes  sure 
of  the  real  one,  and  deals  with  the  unreal  many  when  they 
materialize.  Preachments  and  programs  about  humanity  may 
have  their  place,  but  the  need  of  the  Higgins  family  next 
block  is  a  neighborly  hand.  It  seems  to  me  that  real  human- 
ity must  mean  joining  one  neighborly  hand  to  another  till 
all  the  world  is  in  touch.  I  can't  understand  the  arithmetic 
that  expects  to  sum  up  the  whole  by  leaving  out  the  parts." 

"And  you  lay  that  at  the  door  of  the  Institution?" 
wondered  Graham. 

"Why  shouldn't  I,  Mr.  Graham?  When  you  explained 
your  campaign  in  Boston,  it  sounded  almost  convincing.  But 
i  come  back  to  the  Avery  district  and  everything  seems  to 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


c-mitradict  your  theorv.  A  year  ago  the  re.cion  wa.-^  full  of  peo- 
ple who  were  getting  on  in  the  world  with  tolerable  satisfac- 
tion. They  were  working  hard,  but  instead  of  finding  fault 
with  that,  most  of  them  would  have  given  nj)  all  the  hoi)es 
they  had  ever  pinned  to  luck,  or  politics,  or  fine  sounding 
theories  or  anything  else,  for  the  assurance  of  a  chance  to  do 
that  same  kind  of  work  to  the  end  of  their  days.  Those  of 
them  who  were  careful  had  saved  something  from  their  earn- 
ings. They  were  adding  comforts  to  their  homes.  They 
were  starting  their  children  better  than  they  started  them- 
selves. They  didn't  live  in  Paradise.  They  had  heard  of 
spots  on  the  sun,  and  they  knew  of  exa.sperating  things  about 
government,  and  even  about  their  own  industry.  In  propor- 
tion to  the  substantial  welfare  of  their  lot,  however,  the  eco- 
nomic and  political  evils  were  hardly  more  prominent  in  their 
calculation  than  the  sun  spots.  Now  comes  the  strike,  and  in 
place  of  that  prosperous  and  comfortable  and  decently  con- 
tented population,  all  are  unhappy,  hundreds  are  miserable, 
and  scores  are  desperate.  What  is  the  change  for?  To  elevate 
'Labor!'  "Where  is  this  'Labor,'  and  what  is  it?  You  would 
say  it  is  all-the-laborers,  and  they  can  be  benefited  only  at 
the  cost  of  some-of-the-laborers.  What  the  employers  fall 
back  on  sounds  a  little  more  impersonal,  but  it  really  comes 
to  the  same  thing.  They  say  everything  must  yield  to  the 
interests  of  Capital.  In  either  case  it's  imaginary  people  pre- 
ferred to  real  people.  Both  the  strikers  and  the  corporation 
have  a  theory  of  the  great&st  good  of  the  greatest  number,  but 
in  practice  the  only  ones  you  can  be  sure  of  don't  count  in  the 
least.  Between  your  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  Capital 
and  Labor  you  grind  the  life  out  of  the  actual,  near,  flesh  and 
blood  man  who  is  most  worth  considering.  He  bears  the 
brunt,  whether  of  work  or  fight;  but  whatever  happens  to  him 
Capital  and  Labor  manage  between  them  to  keep  work  or 
fight  going  on  in  the  interest  of  the  absentees,  who  in  either 
case  are  in  no  danger." 

It  was  not  easy  for  Graham  to  deflect  the  force  of  this  ar- 
raignment, especially  as  his  own  thoughts  had  been  running 
in  the  same  direction.  In  sheer  fighting  strength  the  organi- 
zation had  gained  with  every  week  of  the  strike.  But  the  tolls 
of  Avar  had  to  be  paid,  and  experience  at  the  place  of  collec- 
tion tended  to  make  the  price  look  larger  than  its  purchase. 
In  principle  Graham  had  never  faltered  for  a  moment,  nor 

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as  far  as  he  knew  had  any  of  his  supporters.  For  substantially 
the  same  reasons  that  Elsie  had  expressed,  however,  he  had 
lately  been  turning  over  in  his  mind  the  possibility  of  terms 
with  the  Avery  Company  that  would  leave  the  skirmish  line 
a  visible  distance  in  advance  of  its  original  position,  and  would 
relieve  the  first  combatants  by  transferring  the  tliick  of  the 
fight  to  another  part  of  the  field.  Simply  because  he  had  not 
been  able  to  hit  upon  a  feasible  proposition,  he  was  obliged 
to  decide  that  the  time  had  not  come  for  altering  the  plan 
of  campaign. 

Graham  had  hardly  more  heart  than  hope  for  an  effort 
to  acclimate  Elsie's  sympathies  to  such  a  north  temperate  at- 
mosphere. He  was  not  comfortable  under  her  criticism; 
still  there  was  refreshment  in  the  contrast  between  her  warmth 
toward  people  in  particular  and  the  necessary  chill  of  a  war 
policy  that  had  to  treat  humanity  as  an  abstraction.  Nor 
upon  second  thought  Avas  he  inordinately  proud  of  his  gen- 
eralization that  a  presumption  in  favor  of  actual  people,  as 
against  contingent  prospects,  was  peculiarly  feministic.  On 
the  contrary,  he  remembered  that  precisely  this  preference  was 
the  first  principle  of  practical  business.  He  saw  that  an  apol- 
ogy was  due  to  Elsie,  and  that  he  must  accept  the  burden  of 
proof  that  her  bird  in  the  hand  was  not  worth  his  two  in  the 
bush.  His  confidence  in  his  own  judgment  was  not  waver- 
ing, but  he  was  almost  as  uncertain  of  his  wish  as  of  his  ability 
to  change  Elsie's  view.  His  usual  decisiveness  was  well  in  the 
background  as  he  took  up  his  defense. 

"You  wouldn't  admit,  Miss  Kissinger,  that  you  are  appeal- 
ing to  the  philosophy  of  'let  well  enough  alone?'  " 

Elsie  was  unhappily  neither  as  sure  as  Graham  of  her  out- 
come, nor  was  she  as  reliant  upon  her  own  reasoning.  She 
was  in  contact  with  a  mass  of  saddening  facts,  and  she  con- 
nected them  correctly  with  their  immediate  occasions.  Be- 
yond this  she  was  in  the  same  fog  with  older  and  wiser  peo- 
ple. If  there  was  a  difference,  it  was  that  few  of  the  older 
and  wiser  gave  themselves  as  much  uneasiness  about  a  fog- 
dispeller.  Graham's  insinuation  touched  a  specially  tender 
spot,  and  he  charged  up  another  gaucherie  to  himself  when 
Elsie  answered: — ''Is  that  degree  of  harshness  necessary,  Mr. 
Graham?  One  might  suy)pose  it  would  count  as  a  mitigating 
circumstance  that  I  said  first  aid  to  the  injured  is  futile  com- 
pared with  shutting  off  the  supply  of  injuries?" 

299 


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THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


Gniliam  could  liave  choked  himself  for  his  tactlessness.  It 
was  a  new  experience  to  miscue  in  this  stupid  fashion.  He 
felt  as  though  he  had  suddenly  found  out  that  one  of  his 
senses  had  stopped  working.  He  thought  it  must  have  been 
his  campaign  habits.  A  season  of  sharpshooting  at  the  worst 
and  the  weakest  in  opposing  opinions  must  have  reorganized 
him  for  offense  only. 

At  the  same  time  Elsie  was  trying  to  restrain  herself  from 
too  fickle  parting  with  her  illusion  that  Graham  w^as  tolerant 
and  magnanimous.  His  uneasiness  was  so  obtrusive,  how- 
ever, that  she  could  understand  it  only  as  a  taking  of  liberty 
to  be  angry  at  her  disagreement. 

With  a  doughty  effort  to  put  himself  right,  Graham  threw 
over  his  misplaced  confidence  in  abstract  reasoning,  and  reck- 
lessly followed  his  impulse.  It  was  a  lucky  stumble  into  rein- 
statement in  Elsie's  sympathy. 

"I  don't  know  why  I'm  floundering  so,  Miss  Kissinger," 
he  blurted  out  boyishly,  "but  it's  probably  what's  coming  to 
me  for  dragging  the  day's  work  in  at  all.  My  instincts  claim 
you  as  an  ally.  It  was  farthest  from  my  intention  to  W'Orry 
you  into  professing  my  opinions.  I  have  been  wrestling  all 
Summer  with  friends  and  enemies  who  had  at  least  the  one 
purpose  in  common  of  beating  the  dust  out  of  one  another's 
arguments.  Those  of  us  who  were  fighting  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der against  the  Company  have  fought  one  another  as  hard, 
not  to  defeat  one  another  but  to  chase  everything  out  of  our 
calculations  that  can't  justify  itself.  It's  a  terrific  test,  but 
in  the  end  it's  a  mutual  benefit.  There  is  nothing  like  it  to 
prick  bubbles  and  put  us  face  to  face  both  with  ourselves  and 
the  cold  facts.  I  had  no  business  to  go  at  you  as  though  I 
wanted  to  schoolmaster  you  into  reciting  my  lessons,  and  it  is 
more  of  a  surprise  to  me  than  to  you  that  I  did  it.  As  I  think 
it  over  now,  our  organization  has  been  furnishing  a  pretty 
good  illustration  of  George  Eliot's  remark  that  kicking  and 
cuffing  are  common  folks'  wooing.  We  have  improved  our 
mutual  understanding  and  kept  up  our  courage  by  merciless 
belaborings  of  one  another.  Ever  since  our  Boston  talks  I've 
counted  you  on  our  side  in  spirit.  It  was  boorish  confiding- 
ness  not  to  guard  you  against  our  sort  of  attack,  but  it  was  that 
at  worst.  To  tell  the  truth,  the  hardest  struggle  I've  had  has 
been  with  my  own  misgivings  in  the  very  line  you  have  sug- 
gested.    I  hope  I'm  open  to  conviction,  if  I'm  wTong,  but  I 

300 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


have  nearly  sweat  blood  deciding  that  it  wouldn't  be  justice  in 
the  long  run  to  the  people  who  are  sacrificing  most,  if  we 
should  let  up  before  we  had  clinched  something  in  their  favor. 
I  was  hungry  for  a  crumb  of  confirmation  from  you.  Possi- 
bly my  conscience  was  guilty  and  came  to  you  for  indulgence. 
I  don't  like  to  think  so,  though.  If  I  can  tell  the  truth  about 
myself,  I  was  just  instinctively  hoping  you  had  checked  up 
the  items  in  the  bill  of  expense  that  you  had  direct  knowledge 
of,  and  had  still  found  a  balance  to  the  credit  of  the  strike. 
It  would  be  no  wonder  if  you  hadn't,  but  it  would  have  stead- 
ied me  with  a  whole  lot  of  comfort  if  you  had." 

How  remorseful  Graham's  confidence  had  made  her  feel, 
Elsie  would  hardly  have  cared  to  admit,  but  her  relenting  was 
unconcealed.  She  was  quite  aware  that  her  vanity  might 
have  been  drugged  by  Graham's  association  of  her  with  his 
cabinet  counsellors ;  but  whether  the  flattery  was  artful  or  art- 
less, it  was  conciliating.  The  constraint  between  them  was 
gone,  and  Elsie  rather  eagerly  seized  the  chance  to  prove  up 
her  impressions  with  Graham's  assistance. 

"If  it  will  help  any,"  she  responded,  "to  acknowledge  that 
it  was  the  feminine  of  it  to  mix  my  feelings  with  matters  of 
opinion,  I  hereby  accept  my  sackcloth  and  ashes.  If  you  will 
forget  that  foolishness,  I  will  further  confess  that  I  ought  to 
have  racked  my  soul  a  good  deal  more,  before  I  pretended  to 
be  sure  I  had  weighed  everything  in  the  case.  I  am  not  sure, 
and  I  know  it,  and  I  was  really  experimenting  with  your  own 
plan  of  saying  the  worst  to  see  what  it  was  worth.  Perhaps 
it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  if  I  should  say  that,  in  spite  of 
my  belief  that  your  argument  for  the  strike  is  strong,  if  it  de- 
pended on  me,  after  all  the  consequences  of  the  strike  that 
I  have  seen  in  these  few  weeks,  I  wouldn't  have  the  courage 
to  say  it  should  continue." 

"It  may  be.  Miss  Kissinger,"  Graham  returned  with  an  ab- 
stracted manner  which  Elsie  had  not  seen  in  him  before, 
"that  if  it  depended  on  you  it  would  require  still  more  courage 
to  say  it  should  not  continue.  I'm  afraid  of  lapse  into  the  con- 
troversial again,  and  so  I  merely  ask  how  you  could  stop  with 
your  demand  for  removal  of  causes,  and  not  take  the  next 
step  of  recognizing  that  the  whole  aim  of  the  strike  is  to  re- 
move causes." 

"But  if  the  strike,  so  far  as  you  can  see,  multiplies  evils  in- 
stead of  preventing  them?"  pleaded  Elsie. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    PRICE    OF    PROGRESS 


"Then,"  subuiittod  C<rahaiii,  "Ls  there  nothing  in  the  anal- 
ogy that  the  most  scientific  doctor  or  surgeon  often  has  to  make 
tlie  patient  worse  before  he  can  make  him  better?  We  should 
have  no  saxTug  of  life  by  means  of  the  operating  room  if  some 
one  hadn't  the  nerve  to  cause  suffering  for  the  sake  of  reliev- 
ing it.  Let  us  go  back  to  one  item  in  the  state  of  things  as  you 
described  it  before  the  strike.  The  people  would  have  jumped 
at  an  offer  to  underwrite  their  jobs  for  life.  Without  reckon- 
ing any  other  evil  in  their  lot,  isn't  it  an  intolerable  situation 
that,  instead  of  having  their  jobs  safe  for  life,  either  Capital 
or  Labor  may  any  minute  step  in  and  put  them  out  of  their 
jobs?  Isn't  it  worth  something  to  them  to  change  that  condi- 
tion? Can't  they  afford  to  sacrifice  and  suffer  a  little  w^hile 
to  win  security  for  life?" 

''In  the  abstract  that  is  easy  to  suppose,"  confirmed  Elsie, 
"but  the  aw'ful  practical  problem  is  to  find  the  line  between 
profitable  sacrifice  for  future  good,  and  profitless  prolonging 
of  treatment  that  only  aggravates  the  disease.  In  our  own 
case,  isn't  it  time  to  consider  anything  possible  that  might  get 
our  people  a  little  fraction  of  what  they  have  fought  for,  and 
then  let  some  other  silent  partners  on  the  labor  side  take  their 
turn  in  distress?" 

The  piano  had  been  the  base  of  operations  for  the  larger 
group,  while  only  a  meagre  overflow  of  the  non-musical  had 
trickled  into  the  librarv\  The  whole  company  was  now  tak- 
ing possession  of  its  more  familiar  forum. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   SOCIOLOGIST 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


XVIII 
THE    SOCIOLOGIST 

"The  upshot  was  that  all  the  folks  who  stopped  to  talk  the 
matter  over  between  innings  agreed  that  live-and-help- 
live  ought  to  be  the  game,  and  that  every  body  would  get 
more  out  of  it  in  the  end,  after  it  was  fairly  learned,  than 
they  were  getting  out  of  the  live-and-let-live  game." 


THE  ordinary  symposium  of  The  Riffraff  was  modelled 
after  a  fox  hunt.  Anyone  who  ventured  to  express  an 
opinion  was  fair  game  for  the  rest.  This  time  the  talk  had 
taken  an  introspective  turn  that  was  getting  on  everybody's 
nerves.  It  had  become  a  rather  abstract  and  caustic  debate 
on  society  in  general,  and  the  part  that  academic  people  might 
and  mostly  do  not  play  in  solving  social  problems.  A  pessimis- 
tic shadow  was  settling  over  the  group  when  Vance,  one  of  the 
mathematicians,  pointed  in  a  new  direction. 

"No  doubt  there  is  a  good  deal  of  subsidiary  fumigation  of 
the  universe,"  he  conceded,  "in  thus  rouging  over  our  own 
blushes.  It  seems  to  have  been  an  artistic  piece  of  work.  But 
the  terms  of  the  call  led  me  to  expect  incidental  attention  to 
the  fact  that  we  are  not  the  whole  thing.  We  are  the  belle  of 
the  ball  of  course,  and  the  main  interest  flutters  around  our 
make-up;  but  at  this  stage  of  the  preparations  wouldn't  it 
tend  to  insure  the  success  of  the  function  if  we  heard  from 
the  committee  of  arrangements  what  is  known  about  the  fig- 
ures and  favors?" 

The  allusion  would  have  meant  nothing  to  a  stranger,  and 
its  point  was  not  seen  by  the  company  till  Vance  had  focussed 
attention  on  Randall,  who  had  thus  far  been  a  silent  super- 
numerary in  the  library  scene.  It  took  but  a  moment  for 
Vance's  hint  to  do  its  work.  The  pack  had  slipped  its  leash 
and  was  in  full  cry  driving  Randall  into  the  open. 

Randall  was  one  of  the  sociologists.  His  personal  equation 
was  an  indulgently  cynical  front  toward  the  besetting  weak- 
nesses of  his  immediate  environment,  with  a  concealed  storage 
battery  of  day  and  night  doggedness  to  make  his  prospect  pan 
out.    The  sententious  smile  which  was  a  part  of  his  undress 

307 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     SOCIOLOGIST 


uniform,  was  a  modus  vivendi  between  wearied  resignation 
and  amused  curiosity.  That  the  foolish  were  requiring  of 
sociology  a  sign,  and  that  the  wise  were  persuading  themselves 
it  was  foolishness,  served  Randall  as  an  exhaustless  source  of 
quickening  inspiration.  It  was  wholly  rea'^suring,  he  held, 
that  the  sociologist  wa*;  a  prophet  without  honor.  If  the  big 
world  listened,  it  would  be  something  new  in  mortal  grop- 
ings  toward  the  light ;  and  it  would  rouse  fears  in  the  knowing 
that  after  all  they  were  voicing  the  past  instead  of  the  future. 
It  did  not  feaze  Randall  that  his  colleagues  generally  classed 
sociology  with  phrenology  and  palmistry.  He  was  old  enough 
to  remember  when  biology  was  in  the  same  doldrums,  and  he 
had  started  his  own  professional  career  as  the  first  incumbent 
of  a  chair  of  history  and  economics,  created  in  a  New  England 
college  against  the  protest  of  every  member  of  the  faculty  ex- 
cept the  President.  The  objection  was  that  those  subjects  were 
not  fit  for  a  place  in  the  curriculum !  Why  should  his  work 
have  an  easier  time  making  its  way  than  every  previous  wid- 
ening outlook?  Randall  liked  to  dream  of  his  subject  set- 
ting such  a  pace  that  it  could  presently  afford  to  take  breath 
at  the  top  of  the  last  hill  climbed,  and  look  back  compassion- 
ately on  the  stragglers  stiaiggling  up  the  slope.  His  vote 
among  the  sociologists  was  always  for  keeping  at  their  weav- 
ing while  the  demand  was  developing  for  their  goods.  There 
was  grim  resolution  back  of  his  playful  dictum  that  the  found- 
ling social  sciences  were  fast  outgrowing  their  knee-pants,  and 
would  soon  have  to  be  cutting  their  clothes  from  sociological 
cloth. 

A  moment's  lull  followed  Randall's  protestation  of  reluc- 
tance to  break  in  on  a  pleasing  pastime.  Nor  was  it  imme- 
diately apparent  whether  he  was  accepting  or  declining  the 
challenge ;  but  that  he  was  not  over-awed  by  the  symposium 
needed  no  confirmation  after  he  began  to  speak.  He  wielded 
a  plausible  drawl,  and  it  was  one  of  the  accessories  that  ef- 
fectively confused  the  proportions  between  the  facetious  and 
the  serious  when  he  was  intentionally  non-committal. 

Although  he  affected  a  patronizing  tone  toward  the  dis- 
cussion, he  saw  signs  in  what  had  been  said  that  the  coterie 
was  promisingly  agnostic  about  some  things  which  it  had 
never  before  openly  questioned.  He  wanted  to  help  the  good 
work  along,  and  he  thought  it  was  a  psychological  moment  for 
giving  it  a  lift,  but  he  warned  himself  that  the  jig  would  be 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


up  if  he  betrayed  signs  of  going  at  the  subject  very  Hterally. 
Before  allowing  himself  to  be  inveigled,  he  sparred  defen- 
sively a  few  seconds  with  several  assailants  at  once,  and  there 
was  little  to  suggest  the  propagandist  when  he  finally  settled 
back,  with  fingers  matched  over  his  watch-chain,  in  decent 
didactic  style,  as  sign  of  preparation  to  impart  instruction. 

''Well  then,"  he  began,  "since  you  children  insist  on  romp- 
ing in  my  workshop,  I  must  quit  my  job  and  watch  what  will 
happen.  You  play  with  the  tools  and  act  now  and  then  as 
though  you  might  accidentally  toss  off  a  respectable  piece  of 
work.  You  might  be  charged  with  spasms  of  almost  social 
intelligence  sometimes,  if  you  w^eren't  so  coy  about  being 
caught  in  the  act.  Some  day  you'll  come  tiptoeing  'round  to 
our  shack  begging  us  to  connect  up  your  social  theories  that 
stop  just  short  of  going  alone.  You'll  find  us  ready  to  let  by- 
gones be  bygones.  We'll  help  you  out,  and  we  won't  even  say 
'I  told  you  so.'  You've  evidently  nibbled  on  the  sly  at  wind- 
falls from  the  tree  of  knowledge,  but  the  thing  you'll  no 
doubt  swallow  whole,  one  of  these  days,  is  the  process  concep- 
tion of  life;  and  then  you'll  blame  the  sociologists  for  not 
naming  an  earlier  date  for  a  new  heaven  and  earth." 

Randall  radiated  on  the  company  one  of  his  most  suavely 
patriarchal  expressions,  which  was  his  method  of  advertising 
that  he  did  not  think  it  expedient  to  presume  on  their  ripe- 
ness for  further  revelations. 

Fessenden  was  the  first  to  call  him : — "Now  you've  got 
your  foot  in,  Randall,  go  the  route!  Let  us  see  if  you  can 
make  a  crossing !" 

"Oh!  I  should  hate  to  ride  Dapple  Gray  too  hard  in  an  ex- 
hibition heat,"  feinted  Randall. 

"Give  us  the  rest  of  it,  Randall,"  badgered  Gregory,  of  the 
Divinity  School.  "We'll  let  you  off  for  freeing  your  mind 
this  time." 

Randall  was  in  fact  by  no  means  sure  how  he  could  say  his 
say  without  lapsing  into  shop  talk.  There  was  another  re- 
version into  general  chatter,  all  aimed  at  harrying  him  into 
further  offense  or  defense.  When  he  had  resisted  enough  to 
insure  a  hearing,  he  resumed,  with  an  availing  injured-inno- 
cence effect : — 

"Although  you  have  no  use  for  my  way  of  thinking,  it 
may  please  you  if  I  pay  a  ])assing  compliment  to  yours.  The 
flow  of  soul  of  which  I  have  been  an  enraptured  observer  this 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


evening  has  unfolded  to  me  your  dazzling  conception  that  life 
is  a  nest  of  boxes.  With  hardly  restrained  delight  I  have  made 
out  your  penetrating  idea  that  the  puzzle  is  to  find  which  be- 
longs inside  of  which.  I  notice  that  you  expect  some  day 
to  get  them  all  correctly  assorted,  and  cozily  stowed  away,  each 
in  its  foreordained  place;  whereupon  the  millennium  will  be 
ready  to  receive  callers.  You  make  some  brave  little  sorties 
with  other  catch-words,  but  you  don't  get  beyond  retreating 
distance  from  your  cubby-hole  conception.  Your  heaven  and 
hell  are  just  the  biggest  boxes  in  the  outfit,  where  your  ma- 
chine-turned righteous  and  wicked  are  to  be  stationary  in  their 
respective  eternities ;  and  your  society  is  an  assortment  of  the 
same  sort  of  boxes,  set  on  wheels  and  cut  up  into  compart- 
ments to  match  the  various  calibres  of  your  good  and  bad 
contract-labor  migrants,  consigned  through  this  intermediate 
human  state  to  the  final  distributing  point.  I  hate  to 
disturb  your  party  with  the  news  that  the  whole  thing  you've 
arranged  for  in  this  smug  fashion  is  not  a  nest  of  boxes  at  all. 
It's  a  continuous  performance  transfomiation  scene,  and  the 
play  is  for  all  the  actors  to  scamper  every  minute  to  find  them- 
selves in  the  new  setting. 

"That's  only  the  beginning;  but  if  you'll  run  home  by  and 
by,  and  think  over  it  quietly,  I  don't  mind  telling  a  little 
more  of  the  tale.  You  can  piece  it  out  for  yourselves  from 
things  you  may  see  any  day  out  of  your  own  windows,  if  you 
don't  put  too  many  old  age  spectacles  on  your  noses." 

"At  this  rate,  Randall,  you'll  reach  the  climax  that  the  sun 
usually  rises  in  the  east  and  sets  in  the  west,"  was  Fessenden's 
note  of  appreciation. 

"No !  No !"  cheerfully  retorted  Randall.  "God  forbid  my 
too  rudely  jostling  anyone's  sustaining  faith  that  the  sun  has 
gone  into  a  permanent  decline." 

Randall  rapidly  calculated  that  his  psychological  moment 
could  not  last  always,  and  he  pulled  out  a  few  more  stops, 
rather  with  a  view  to  volume  than  distinctness. 

"You'll  have  to  take  my  word  for  it.  Your  glossaries  don't 
English  our  Yiddish.  But  the  truly  wise  in  their  generation 
have  found  out  that  a  hurry-call  has  gone  in  to  change  over 
the  world's  morals  from  a  categorical  to  a  functional  basis. 
It's  a  cryptogram  to  all  but  the  psychologists,  and  they  may 
have  got  the  key  before  we  did.  They've  been  so  busy  rum- 
maging the  secret  drawers  of  consciousness  with  it,  however. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


that  they've  left  pretty  much  all  out-doors  to  us.  There  may 
be  some  quicker  way,  but  the  only  direction  I  can  give  for 
finding  out  what  it  means,  is  to  Summer  it  and  Winter  it  till  it 
seems  like  home  folks.  Traces  of  it  have  seeped  into  the  heads 
of  a  few  people  ever  since  philosophizing  began,  but  it  is  still 
known  to  commerce  only  under  the  poison  sign.  Meanwhile, 
a  good  deal  that  has  passed  as  immorality  has  been  virtue  trav- 
eling incog — that  is,  irrepressible  nature  forcing  practice 
ahead  of  rules." 

Randall  again  affected  pained  surprise  at  the  small  fire  of 
sarcasm  that  greeted  his  runic  generalizations. 

"I  know  it  sounds  a  little  heavy  for  Mother  Goose,"  he  apol- 
ogized, ''but  I'm  only  used  to  saying  it  to  people  who  have 
learned  the  lingo.  I  don't  know  whether  it  will  strike  you  as 
more  condensed  or  diluted,  but  as  a  pedagogical  plunge  I'll 
try — happy  thought !  I'll  give  you  a  few  leaves  out  of  my 
Constructive  History  Studies,  designed  and  executed  for  the 
use  of  infants  of  days  at  a  stage  of  arrested  precocity  which  I 
can  imagine  without  complete  segregation  from  the  present 
company." 

The  medley  of  "Hear!  Hear!"  and  "Boo!  Boo!"  in  mascu- 
line and  feminine  chorus,  was  in  tune  with  Randall's  temper, 
and  served  its  purpose  of  prodding  his  effort. 

"Also!"  he  began.  "Once  upon  a  time  the  world  woke  up. 
One  fine  morning  somebody,  whose  name  has  unfortunately 
been  forgotten,  stopped  grubbing  on  the  ground-worm  plan 
and  said  to  himself,  'There's  something  in  my  mind's  eye 
that  doesn't  exist  anywhere  else ;  but  it  looks  worth  while  and 
I'm  for  it!  Therein  the  scheme  of  things  first  showed  its 
hand.  From  that  on  the  mind's  eye  sets  the  mark,  and  the 
human  process  begins  as  a  game  of  see-it-first-and-get-all-of-it- 
I-can.  'Twas  a  great  thing  for  the  world,  this  birthday  of  the 
mind's  eye  game,  and  if  we  only  knew  what  day  of  the  month 
it  fell  on,  we  might  sometime  make  it  a  bigger  holiday  and  a 
saner  than  the  Fourth  of  July.  At  the  start,  it's  no  very  nice 
game,  nor  a  polite.  The  mind's  eye  doesn't  picture  very  lady- 
like things,  and  there's  no  great  squeamishness  about  how  to 
get  them.  It  turns  out  later  though  that  the  whole  game  is 
a  way  of  getting  the  mind's  eye  to  see  things  better  worth 
while,  and  improving  tastes  about  ways  of  putting  them  on  the 
active  list.  The  things  first  in  the  mind's  eye  don't  keep  their 
attraction  very  long.     Either  getting  them  or  finding  them 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


out  of  reach  leaves  the  mind's  eye  free  to  pick  out  soniethiug 
else ;  and  after  the  game  is  fairly  under  way  there  is  no  telling 
how  fast  these  new  worth-whiles  will  put  in  an  appearance. 

"Minds'  eyes  get  pointed  toward  new  things  partly  by  find- 
ing other  minds'  eyes  standing  in  their  light.  Some  things 
look  all  the  more  worth  while  if  other  mind's  eyes  are  watch- 
ing them,  and  grabbing  grows  greedier  on  that  account. 

''After  a  bruising  time  of  j^laying  the  game  under  devil- 
take-the-hindmost  rules,  a  few  minds'  eyes  get  a  picture  of  a 
game  of  live-and-let-live.  It  seems  as  though  that  might  be  a 
mighty  restful  change  from  the  game  of  grab.  A  lot  of  peo- 
ple get  excited  over  rules  for  playing  it.  Other  people  can't 
make  it  look  good.  They  so  conveniently  get  wdiat  they  want 
under  grab  rules  that  they  don't  care  to  take  risks  with  dif- 
ferent regulations. 

''So,  instead  of  getting  a  chance  to  settle  down  quietly,  the 
folks  with  live-and-let-live  in  their  minds'  eye  have  a  more 
rough-and-tumble  time  than  ever  with  the  folks  who  have 
only  grab  in  their  eye.  At  last  the  gentler  folk  so  far  out- 
count  the  rougher  that,  by  sheer  force  of  numbers,  live-and- 
let-live  becomes  the  game.  No  more  knocking  on  the  head. 
No  more  making  some  people  slave  for  the  rest.  No  more 
taking  some  people's  food  and  clothes  away  because  other  peo- 
ple want  to  be  fatter  and  warmer,  or  because  they  find  it  easier 
to  rob  than  to  work.  That's  all  foul.  The  game  now  is  for 
everyone  to  have  his  own  things.  If  anyone  doesn't  consent 
to  this,  everyone  else  is  to  join  in  and  make  him. 

"The  live-and-let-live  game  enjoys  no  end  of  popularity 
till  folks  have  cleared  the  way  for  playing  it.  There  is  some 
sadness  over  parting  with  the  mind's  eye,  to  be  sure;  but 
there's  never  a  gain  without  some  small  loss.  Though  there'll 
be  nothing  for  a  mind's  eye  to  do,  after  the  live-and-let-live 
game  begins,  the  fun  of  the  game  will  more  than  make  up 
for  any  benefit  that  used  to  come  from  watching  out  for  better 
things. 

"But  it  is  not  so  very  long  before  folks  find  that  it  isn't 
working  that  way.  Somehow  or  other  the  mind's  eye  gets 
busier  than  ever,  and  it  finds  a  whole  lot  of  new  things  worth 
while.  It's  a  glorious  thing  to  play  a  game  in  wdiich  every 
one  is  let  alone  by  everyone  else,  and  everyone  is  free  to  make 
the  most  of  oneself,  according  to  one's  own  sweet  will.  All  is 
as  gay  as  a  May-day  frolic  when  the  new  rules  go  into  force ; 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


but  before  long  the  fun  begins  to  flag.  Perhaps  the  prospect 
is  too  bright  for  the  mind's  eye  to  bear.  At  any  rate,  many 
complaints  are  heard  that  things  look  queer.  The  live-and- 
let-live  game  has  the  field,  yet  folks  are  not  happy,  and  the 
minds'  eyes  seem  all  at  sea.  They  are  filled  with  such  a  fog 
of  ugly  things-as-they-are,  that  they  can't  make  steady  pic- 
tures of  things  that  would  be  worth  while.  This  live-and-let- 
live  game  has  got  folks  into  a  nasty  mess.  It  never  was  so  in- 
tended in  the  least.  No  one  would  have  thought  it  before- 
hand, but  living  in  one's  own  way,  and  letting  everyone  else 
do  the  same,  came  to  a  pass  where  a  few  minds'  eyes  made  out 
that  if  some  kinds  of  folks  lived  in  their  way,  they  played  the 
mischief  with  other  kinds  of  folks  who  wanted  to  live  another 
way.  Some  folks  wanted  to  earn  their  daily  bread,  and  eat  it 
with  as  little  fuss  as  need  be,  and  then  to  spend  the  rest  of 
their  time  wholesomely  exercising  their  minds  and  bodies, 
or  in  making  merry  with  their  friends.  Other  folks  could 
see  nothing  worth  while  but  stores  of  bread ;  and  not  satisfied 
with  eating  their  own  and  then  living  decent  lives,  they  spent 
their  time  cornering  the  bread  that  other  folks  needed  to  eat. 
The  first  kind  of  folks  said  that  the  second  kind  of  folks  were 
making  a  fool  of  the  whole  game.  They  not  only  wanted  to 
play  for  bread  alone,  but  they  turned  all  the  bread  they  didn't 
want  to  eat  into  a  form  that  was  not  fit  for  anyone  else  to  eat, 
but  was  useful  only  for  making  more  useless  bread.  This  was 
a  quirk  in  the  live-and-let-live  rules  that  nobody  had  expected 
and  nobody  understood.  The  deuce  of  it  was  that  it  seemed  to 
make  everybody's  mind's  eyesight  worse  and  worse.  Nobody 
was  any  longer  fit  to  be  trusted  about  what  was  worth  while. 
The  folks  that  wanted  to  do  nothing  but  heap  up  the  stale 
bread  couldn't  see  straight  about  what  was  worth  while  for 
their  bodies  or  their  minds  or  their  friends;  but  most  of  those 
who  didn't  care  for  bread  not  necessary  for  food,  also  sadly 
neglected  body  and  mind  and  friends,  because  the  necessary 
food  was  so  fearfully  hard  to  get.  The  live-and-let-live  game, 
that  looked  so  brave  before  it  was  tried,  had  turned  out  to 
mean.  Everybody  let  Smith  live  as  he  pleases,  even  if  Smith 
finds  a  way  to  live  so  that  Jones  must  live  in  Smith's  way  or 
not  live  at  all.  'Twas  bully  for  Smith,  but  rough  on  Jones. 
But  the  Jones  tribe  outnumbered  the  Smiths  a  hundred  to 
one,  and  when  the  Joneses  found  their  affairs  going  from  bad 
to  worse,  many  of  their  minds'  eyes  grew  quite  wild,  hunting 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


for  something  worth  while  when  the  game  was  getting  so 
mixed." 

Randall's  parody  had  caught  on  with  the  company.  It  put 
the  issue  they  were  all  bothered  about  in  such  third-personal 
shape  that  it  did  not  strain  the  group  code.  At  the  same  time, 
this  homely  whittling  down  to  a  point  gave  everyone  the  feel- 
ing that  Randall  w^as  really  saying  something,  whether  they 
could  agree  w^th  it  or  not.  For  once  The  Riffraff  dropped  its 
disguise  and  became  for  the  moment  perniciously  thoughtful. 
Probably  no  one  in  the  lot  was  less  likely  to  be  convinced  than 
Tracey  of  the  Law^  School ;  but  so  far  as  he  went  he  spoke  the 
sense  of  the  meeting,  both  in  the  spirit  and  in  the  saving  rem- 
nant of  sporty  letter,  when  he  encouraged : — "Run  your  string 
out,  Randall !   We're  with  you,  wdn  or  lose." 

Accepting  the  terms  as  all  that  could  reasonably  be  de- 
manded, Randall  proceeded: — "Just  as  a  great  many  folks 
were  getting  desperate,  and  vowdng  the  only  thing  to  do  was 
to  break  up  the  game  altogether,  some  minds'  eyes,  that  had 
been  watching  the  game  wdthout  making  much  head  or  tail 
out  of  it,  got  an  image  of  a  new^  w^orth-while.  They  caught  a 
little  different  slant  of  light  on  the  game,  and  the  rules  of 
live-and-let-live  had  become  live-and-help-live.  'Tw^as  aston- 
ishing how^  different  the  game  looked !  'Twas  hard  to  recog- 
nize it  as  the  old  game  at  all. 

"It  didn't  take  long  before  these  few  people,  with  a  new 
worth-while  in  their  minds'  eyes,  began  to  hear  from  one  an- 
other. After  a  bit  they  got  in  the  habit  of  coming  together 
between  innings,  squatting  down  on  the  grass,  and  talking 
over  improvement  of  the  game.  One  would  say,  'All  the 
chance  there  is  in  the  w^orld  belongs  to  us  all  alike,  to  play  the 
game  for  all  it's  worth.  Why  should  any  of  us  have  the  right 
to  block  the  game  for  the  rest  of  us?' 

"Then  another  would  say,  'Yes,  indeed!  Why?  It's  all 
well  enough  for  us  to  let  one  another  live  in  our  own  way,  but 
what's  going  to  happen  when  we  get  in  one  another's  way?' 

"  'That's  the  talk !'  chimes  in  a  third ;  'have  the  Smiths  any 
more  right  to  get  in  the  Joneses'  way  than  the  Joneses  have  in 
the  Smiths'?  If  the  Joneses  want  to  enjoy  their  bodies  and 
their  minds  and  their  friends,  after  they've  earned  enough 
bread  to  fill  their  stomachs,  w^hy  should  they  be  prevented  by 
the  Smiths'  craze  for  cornering  bread?' 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


''Then  a  fourth  would  get  in  his  word : — 'Everybody  with 
his  mind's  eye  open  knows  now-a-days  that  the  worth-while 
is  to  have  just  enough  bread  so  we  can  make  the  most  of  our 
bodies  and  our  minds  and  our  friends.  If  we  make  too  much 
of  the  bread,  we  scamp  the  other  things ;  and  if  we  try  to  do 
without  the  bread,  and  have  the  other  things,  we  slip  up  on 
the  whole  business.  We're  all  out  after  the  worth-while,  but 
nobody  can  do  everything.  No  one  has  any  niore  right  to  try 
for  the  worth-while  than  another.  No  one  has  any  right  to 
hinder  another's  trying.  It  looks  to  me  as  though  the  only 
way  to  get  the  most  of  the  worth-while  is  for  everybody  to  join 
in  helping  everybody  else,  by  swapping  off  chances  that  we 
can't  use  to  piece  out  our  own  worth-while,  for  chances  that 
the  other  fellow  can't  use.  In  that  way  each  will  fill  out  his 
own  worth-while,  with  the  least  surplus  of  not-worth-while  on 
his  hands.' 

"  'That's  all  very  well,'  puts  in  a  fifth,  'but  what  are  you 
going  to  do  if  some  of  the  Smiths  w^on't  play  that  way? 
They're  always  saying  it's  none  of  their  affair  if  the  Joneses 
are  short  of  worth-while.  The  Smiths  have  got  things  fixed 
so  they  can  get  all  the  fresh  bread  they  want,  and  can  humor 
their  fad  of  piling  up  stale  bread ;  while  the  Joneses  have  got 
to  stop  trying  for  the  other  worth-whiles  and  help  the  Smiths 
heap  up  their  musty  bread,  in  order  to  get  a  bare  living  al- 
lowance.' 

"  'I'll  tell  you  what!'  shouts  a  sixth.  'There's  always  got  to 
be  some  Johnsons  in  the  game  to  tell  both  Smiths  and  Joneses 
when  they're  offside.  Nobody  ought  to  be  allowed  in  the  game 
that  isn't  working  out  a  part  of  the  worth-while  for  everybody 
else.  Instead  of  the  Smiths  and  the  Joneses  crowding  each 
other  out  of  their  different  sorts  of  worth-while,  it's  as  you 
just  said.  Number  4.  Each  ought  to  have  a  fair  agreement 
to  piece  out  the  unfinished  parts  of  the  others'  worth-while 
with  some  of  the  surplus  of  his  own  worth-while.  If  either  of 
them  clog  this  arrangement  by  carrying  their  own  worth- 
Avhile  too  far,  it  should  be  the  Johnsons'  business  to  call  a  halt, 
and  tell  them  this  isn't  the  old  false-pretense  live-and-let-live 
game  any  more;  it's  the  improved  live-and-help-live  game.' 

"About  that  time  someone  not  so  noisy  as  the  rest  would 
speak  up.  'I've  been  thinking,'  he  would  say,  'and  I  believe 
I  can  see  where  we've  been  making  our  mistake.  We've  talked 
as  though  it  wasn't  one  game  at  all,  but  as  many  different 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


games  as  there  were  people,  and  each  a  fi'ame  of  solitaire  going 
on  in  each  one's  private  room,  that  had  no  connection  with 
anyone's  else  private  room.  If  that  had  been  the  case,  our 
live-and-lot-live  rules  would  have  been  perfect,  if  we  had  made 
it  impossible  for  anyone  to  break  into  anyone's  else  private 
room.  But  the  fact  is  that  all  sorts  of  wires  and  tubas  and 
levers  and  belts  and  wheels  connect  everyone's  room  directly 
or  indirectly  with  everyone's  else  room.  The  tenants  in  some 
of  the  rooms  wanted  to  use  all  this  machinery  as  though  it  be- 
longed to  their  rooms  alone,  and  didn't  care  what  effect  it  had 
in  other  rooms.  That  presently  tangled  the  machinery  up  so 
it  may  any  minute  stop  altogether.' 

"That  would  start  another  of  the  quieter  men.  'I  agree 
with  the  last  speaker  in  the  main,'  he  would  say,  'but  his  fig- 
ure is  confusing.  The  fact  is  we  must  go  back  to  the  simple 
rudiments  of  the  game.  The  whole  thing  is  experience  of 
our  minds'  eyes  in  sighting  worth-whiles  that  are  all-in-all 
more  worth  while  than  what  had  passed  for  worth  while ;  and 
experience  of  our  all  'round  abilities  in  getting  those  minds' 
eyes'  worth-whiles  into  reality.  Now  the  thing  we've  run 
up  against  is  that  the  Smith  kind  of  folks  want  the  game  to 
stop  Avith  their  kind  of  worth-while,  instead  of  keeping  on  to 
other  folks'  worth-whiles.  We've  got  to  make  up  our  minds 
that  it  takes  all  the  different  sorts  of  worth-whiles  that  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  players  discover  to  make  up  the  big  worth- 
while of  the  whole  game.  And  we  may  as  well  decide  first  as 
last  that  something  is  wrong  if  anyone's  worth-while  is  put- 
ting anyone  else  out  of  the  game.  What  we  need  is  a  code  of 
rules  that  will  make  the  whole  game  set  the  limits  for  any  lit- 
tle part  of  the  game,  instead  of  allowing  the  Smiths  to  run 
their  own  game  and  other  people's  too.' 

''The  upshot  was  that  all  the  folks  who  stopped  to  talk  the 
matter  over  between  innings  agreed  that  live-and-help-live 
ought  to  be  the  game,  and  that  everybody  would  get  more  out 
of  it  in  the  end.  after  it  was  fairly  learned,  than  they  were  get- 
ting out  of  the  live-and-let-live  game. 

"But  the  more  people  joined  in  these  between-inning  talks, 
and  the  more  worth  while  the  live-and-help-live  game  seemed 
in  their  minds'  eyes,  the  gustier  it  looked  for  the  game  as  it 
was  going  on.  These  between-inning  talks  were  of  course 
passed  along  to  everyone  in  the  game,  and  while  they  were 
taking  place  some  of  the  Joneses  started  to  throw  mud  at  some 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    SOCIOLOGIST 


of  the  Smiths.  Then  some  of  the  Smiths  of  course  shied  stones 
at  some  of  the  Joneses,  and  it  really  looked  as  though  the  game 
might  go  back  to  the  old  bruise  and  kill  and  grab,  before  it 
could  reform  itself  into  live-and-help-live. 

'"One  of  the  troubles  was  that,  although  the  Smiths  were  not 
all  agreed  among  themselves  that  the  new  rules  would  be  bad, 
nor  all  the  Joneses  that  the  rales  would  be  good,  on  the  whole 
the  Smiths  fought  them,  while  the  Joneses  defended  them, 
and  the  Smiths  had  to  stick  with  the  Smiths,  and  the  Joneses 
with  the  Joneses,  so  that  the  game  was  no  longer  on  its  merits, 
but  it  was  turned  into  a  row  between  the  Smiths  and  the 
Joneses,  neither  caring  much  for  the  others  nor  for  the  rest 
of  the  players. 

"That  is  as  far  as  the  thing  has  got.  If  you  read  tomorrow 
morning's  newspaper  with  your  eyes  wide  open,  you'll  see 
that  nothing  much  has  been  going  on  today  except  that  a  good 
many  different  breeds  of  Smiths  have  been  charging  ahead 
with  their  own  particular  worth-whiles,  regardless  whether 
they  bowled  over  any  of  the  Joneses'  worth-whiles  or  not.  At 
the  same  time  the  Jonases  have  been  just  as  nasty  toward  the 
Smiths,  but  not  quite  so  successful.  If  there  is  anything 
worth  noticing  in  the  paper  beside  this,  you  will  have  to  find 
it  mostly  between  the  lines.  If  the  papers  know  it,  they  don't 
print  it.  The  fact  is  that  this  jumble  of  the  game  really 
worth  playing,  that  is  growing  so  senseless  under  the  hypo- 
critical live-and-let-live  rules,  is  dividing  the  people  into  two 
opposing  camps,  the  camp  that  is  bound  the  rules  of  live- 
and-help-live  shall  come,  and  the  camp  bound  they  shall  not 
come.  The  only  moves  of  first-rate  importance  in  the  world 
today  or  any  other  day,  till  the  rules  are  revised,  are  ground 
gainers  for  one  or  the  other  of  those  camps.  The  thing  we're 
deciding  now,  and  probably  for  a  good  many  generations  to 
come,  is  whether  the  rules  hereafter  are  to  be  dictated  by  the 
dog-in-the-manger,  or  by  the  whole  farm." 

Translating  Randall's  story  as  it  went  along,  into  terms  of 
the  pending  labor  situation  in  Chicago,  the  group  had  really 
listened  with  a  good  deal  of  respect.  Something  more  seemed 
to  be  looked  for,  and  as  a  transition  from  his  pedagogical  role 
Randall  concluded:  "All  of  which,  being  interpreted,  sim- 
mers down  to  the  inevitable: — When  a  real  demand  arises  for 
more  thorough  publicity  of  any  human  activity,  or  for  a  more 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     SOCIOLOGIST 


general  franchise  of  all  the  actors  in  bringing  their  full  per- 
tJonality  into  play  in  the  whole  activity,  democracy  is  march- 
ing on,  and  some  time  or  other,  in  some  way  or  other,  the  de- 
mand is  bound  to  prevail." 

No  one  was  quite  ready  to  commit  himself  either  for  or 
against  this  sweeping  thesis.  Even  Fessenden  leaned  more  to- 
wards Randall's  ideas  than  he  thought  it  was  professional  eti- 
quette to  admit.  To  bluff  out  his  opposition  he  good  na- 
turedly  sneered : — 

''Behold  how  History  again  repeats  herself!  The  senti- 
mental mountain  labors  and  brings  forth  the  sociological 
mouse!" 

"No  doubt  it  looks  that  way  if  one  has  reached  the  creepy 
stage,"  calmly  assented  Randall.  "Keep  your  eye  on  the 
mouse  though,  while  you're  sobering  off,  and  see  it  grow  into 
the  army  of  occupation." 

"Time's  up!"  announced  Edgerly.  "Cakes  and  ale  in  the 
kitchen !" 

Even  that  euphemism  was  almost  sumptuous  for  the  rations 
the  rules  allowed ;  but  the  dining  room  scene  was  always  the 
epilogue  of  The  Riffraff  play.  As  the  migrating  movement 
began,  Randall  raised  his  voice  for  a  parting  pronounce- 
ment:— 

"I  almost  forgot  something,"  he  appended.  "I'd  just  like 
to  leave  in  your  minds  another  version  of  my  original  text. 
It'll  pay  to  ponder  it : — The  sop  of  the  tree  of  life  is  any  juice 
that  makes  it  grow;  not  the  prunings  and  the  groomings  it 
gets  from  foresters  and  horticulturists." 


318 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   WAR   COLLEGE 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


XIX 

THE   WAR   COLLEGE 

'It  ought  to  be  easy  for  old  college  men  to  take  up  a  mooted 
question  in  the  same  spirit  they  used  to  show  when  they 

got  a  good  grip  on  a  subject  for  debate If  there 

was  something  to  be  said  after  all  for  the  moon's  being 
made  of  green  cheese,  it  never  entered  their  heads  to  block 
discussion  by  pleading  vested  rights." 


HESTER  and  Elsie,  with  Halleck,  rode  in  Logan  Lyon's 
auto  the  few  blocks  to  the  Kissingers'  house.  They  were 
hardly  in  their  seats  when  Lyon  started  to  unburden  his 
mind : — 

''No  mistake  about  it,  there's  something  freaky  in  this  sea- 
son's Chicago  air!  Everyone  is  catching  it.  That  man  Ran- 
dall pretty  near  had  me  going.  If  I  believe  what  he  seems  to, 
I  don't  know  it,  but  several  of  the  things  he  said  might  have 
been  cribbed  from  my  own  words,  when  I  was  having  some 
fun  with  a  bunch  of  our  directors  the  day  we  heard  the  strike 
decision  last  Spring.  I've  said  a  lot  of  such  things  in  kidding 
matches  with  Edgerly,  but  they  have  a  different  sound  when 
they  come  back  at  you  from  the  other  fellow.  You  have  all 
pimpled  out  at  times  with  the  same  rash,  and  there's  your 
father,  Elsie,  not  to  speak  of  Graham's  eruption,  and  Edgerly 
would  have  been  safer  quarantined  years  ago.  I  suspect  that 
whole  University  crowd  would  vote  for  anarchy  tomorrow,  if 
they  had  a  chance  with  the  Australian  ballot." 

"And  if  we  had  you  strung  up  by  the  heels,  Logan,"  ban- 
tered Halleck,  "and  shook  your  pockets  out,  wouldn't  we 
gather  in  a  few  stickers  of  the  same  color?" 

"That's  the  devil  of  it,"  sputtered  Lyon.  "Nobody  knows 
how  much  he  is  smeared  with  the  same  pitch.  They're  al- 
ways saying  we  must  change  human  nature  before  we  can 
alter  the  institutions  of  society.  If  these  coiniiptions  mean 
anything,  the  human  nature  is  looking  out  for  its  share  all 
right.  I'm  getting  a  flying  start  toward  a  flop  into  the  fatal- 
ism that  it  will  take  a  revolution  to  bring  us  straight  up 
against  lunacy  as  it  works.    A  little  of  it  in  practice  would  be 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


good  and  plenty,  and  then  we'd  be  in  a  pious  state  of  mind 
for  hard  sense." 

"Suppose  we  should  begin  to  inure  ourselves  to  the  rig- 
ors," Hester  niildly  mocked,  ''by  dismissing  the  machine  and 
going  the  rest  of  the  way  afoot?" 

"You  two  precious  plottei's  may  go  the  rest  of  the  way 
afoot,"  fumed  Lyon,  as  they  made  the  landing  in  front  of  the 
Kissingers',  and,  as  he  handed  the  latchkey  back  to  Elsie  he 
added: — "I  hope  the  smell  of  the  powderless  smoke  of  this 
nefarious  evening  won't  disturb  the  good  people  inside." 

As  soon  as  the  two  men  were  alone,  Halleck  opened  upon 
Lyon  with  more  hope  of  starting  something  than  he  had  in- 
dulged since  the  strike  began: — ''Logan,  the  next  thing  that's 
got  to  happen  is  a  friendlv  talk-out  between  you  and  Gra- 
ham !" 

Lyon  made  no  response  for  a  moment.  He  had  gone  over 
the  possibilities  of  conference  and  conciliation  and  arbitration 
so  many  times,  he  had  sounded  the  temper  of  both  sides,  and 
particularly  his  own,  in  so  many  ways,  that  Halleck's  idea 
suggested  to  his  mind  nothing  that  had  not  over  and  over 
again  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  His  expression  was 
less  indifferent  than  skeptical,  but  it  said  directly  enough  that 
he  saw  no  encouragement  to  consider  the  proposition,  when 
he  languidly  answered : — "Is  it  a  frame-up  for  Graham?" 

"No!"  returned  Halleck,  and  he  was  neither  surprised  nor 
cooled  by  Lyon's  listlessness.  "It's  the  break-away  of  the  ir- 
resistible power  and  the  impenetrable  mass.  This  thing  has 
got  to  end  some  time.  Two  bulks  of  brute  force  are  pounding 
each  other  to  cinders  now.  That  catapulting  will  go  on  till 
there's  nothing  left  of  one  or  both,  or  this  battle  of  the  ele- 
ments has  got  to  change  soon  into  a  fair  appraisal  of  reasons. 
You're  the  fir-st  point  on  the  Company's  side,  Logan,  in  the 
line  of  least  resistance.  You've  got  to  be  the  transformer,  if 
the  two  currents  ever  get  to  work  again  as  one.  How  it's  go- 
ing to  be  done  I  don't  know  any  better  than  I  did  at  the  start, 
but  nobody  in  the  days  of  direct  messenger  service  from 
Heaven  was  surer  of  special  orders  from  the  Almighty  than  I 
am  that  it's  up  to  you  and  Graham  to  negotiate  a  truce  of 
God." 

"If  it  had  been  mj  personal  problem,"  consented  Lyon 
frankly,  but  rather  to  the  impulse  than  to  the  application, 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


''there  wouldn't  have  been  any  fight  till  we  had  tried  all  there 
was  in  the  face  to  face  method.  Whatever  liberty  he  may 
have  to  give  advice,  however,  there  is  nothing  at  last  for  a 
subordinate  officer  but  to  obey  orders,  and  that  tells  the  story 
of  my  part  in  the  campaign.  One  doesn't  often  turn  the  trick 
of  dissecting  one's  private  from  one's  official  personality,  and 
it's  a  nasty  thing  to  slip  up  on  ;  but  if  you  think  you  have  any 
way  to  keep  it  a  purely  individual  affair,  with  no  real  or  con- 
structive commitment  of  the  Company,  I  would  rather  have 
a  session  Math  Graham  than  not,  even  at  this  late  day.  I  don't 
see  that  anything  could  come  of  it,  beyond  quieting  our  curi- 
osity, but  I'll  balk  at  nothing  that  has  a  ghost  of  a  show  to 
help  matters." 

Before  they  parted  at  Halleck's  door  Lyon  had  put  him- 
self in  his  friend's  hands  to  the  extent  of  reserving  Thursday 
evening  for  dinner  with  him  at  the  Casino ;  and  Halleck  had 
undertaken  to  contrive  an  accidental  cro&sing  of  paths  with 
Graham. 

Even  if  Halleck  had  been  capable  of  more  indirection  with 
Graham  than  with  I-^yon,  it  would  have  defeated  his  purpose. 
Both  principle  and  policy  obliged  him  to  state  the  facts  just 
as  they  were,  and  to  make  virtually  the  same  appeal  the  next 
morning  which  had  won  the  night  before.  Under  the  same 
provisos  that  the  interview  must  count  as  strictly  personal, 
with  no  representative  value,  Graham  consented  to  make  one 
of  his  frequent  calls  at  the  Casino  Thursday  evening.  It 
was  left  to  Halleck  to  complete  the  connection  in  such  a  way 
that  it  would  either  not  be  noticed  at  all  or  rated  as  entirely 
casual. 

Graham  had  not  neglected  to  compile  from  Halleck  a 
Baedecker  of  Lyon's  make-up.  He  was  not  in  the  least  sur- 
prised that  these  details,  fitting  so  easily  into  the  showing  he 
had  watched  at  the  Edgerly's,  flatly  contradicted  all  he  had 
encountered  in  Lyon's  professional  behavior.  Indeed,  this 
contradiction  was  precisely  one  of  the  tyjiical  cases  which  he 
alleged  of  the  impossible  paradox  in  our  institutions.  In  his 
own  words,  he  had  declared  war  against  a  system  which  stulti- 
fied the  personality  of  its  operators.  As  he  expressed  it  to  him- 
self, the  whole  thing  he  was  fighting  for  was  a  new  deal  by 
which  the  best  of  them  would  agree  to  reverse  the  surrender 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


(tf  their  real  solves  to  eeononiie  dietation,  and  would  under- 
take to  subject  their  business  selves  to  their  personal  stand- 
ards. 

The  c'hanee  to  try  conclusions  with  a  man  of  Lyon's  kind 
flushed  Graham  with  new  joy  of  battle.  Tie  did  not  so  nuich 
want  to  defeat  Lyon  as  to  make  such  a  fight  that  it  would 
presently  force  them  both  into  some  position  where  they 
could  fight  on  the  same  side. 

He  could  not  have  planned  the  skirmish  more  carefully  if 
it  had  been  an  agreed  duel  to  decide  the  campaign ;  but  when 
Halleck  brought  the  two  principals  together  in  the  man- 
ager's room  neither  would  have  given  a  spectator  reason  to 
suspect  anything  out  of  the  commonplace  in  the  encounter. 

After  the  sort  of  greeting  that  might  have  passed  between 
two  law  partners  Avho  happened  to  find  themselves  side  by 
side  in  a  street  car,  Graham  led  off  as  he  might  if  the  subject 
had  been  the  last  topic  discussed  in  their  office: — 

''It  ought  to  be  easy  for  old  college  men  to  take  up  a  mooted 
question  in  the  same  spirit  they  used  to  show^  when  they  got 
a  good  grip  on  a  subject  for  debate.  They  didn't  care  whose 
ox  was  gored.  They  wanted  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  ques- 
tion. If  there  was  something  to  be  said  after  all  for  the  moon's 
being  made  of  green  cheese,  it  never  entered  their  heads  to 
block  discussion  by  pleading  vested  rights." 

"Brave  boys!"  endorsed  Lyon  ambiguously.  "Neither  did 
it  enter  their  heads  that  w^hichever  way  it  t\u*ned  out  would 
make  no  difference  in  the  date  or  the  size  of  the  next  remit- 
tance from  father." 

"That  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  it,"  nodded 
Graham,  "but  every  thoroughbred  in  the  lot  would  have 
chipped  in  the  remittance  any  time  to  see  the  thing  either  way 
to  a  Q.  E.  D.  finish.  Perhaps  you  will  set  it  down  as  butter- 
fly-chasing, but  I  have  more  hope  of  curing  capitalism  by 
transfusion  of  new  blood  from  the  colleges  than  from  any 
other  one  factor." 

"I'm  not  quite  that  sanguine,"  Lyon  demurred,  "I  don't 
look  to  the  colleges  to  turn  business  into  a  communion  of 
saints,  but  as  the  Scotch  candidate  for  ordination  said,  when 
he'd  been  doing  his  duty  by  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith,  and  the  question  turned  to  'works' : — 'Of  coorse,  I  hae 
nae  doot  it  micht  be  a'  richt  tae  hae  a  few.'  " 

32  6 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


"There's  more  to  it  than  that,"  persisted  Graham.  "I  never 
could  see  that  mental  Swedish  movement  on  the  phylo- 
genesis of  the  ethical  dative  could  train  a  boy  for  anything 
but  shirking  a  man's  job;  but  that's  getting  to  be  ancient  his- 
tory. Even  if  he  is  afterwards  plumped,  as  I  was,  into  the  ice- 
bath  of  a  millionaire's  situation,  no  boy  fit  to  be  out  of  a  home 
for  the  weak-minded  can  spend  two  or  three  years  in  the  kind 
of  running  down  social  cause  and  effect  that's  going  on  in  the 
colleges  now,  and  ever  be  quite  at  his  ease  in  the  Philistine 
Zion  of  capitalism." 

On  the  whole,  the  opening  had  tended  to  strengthen  Hal- 
leck's  expectations.  He  could  not  have  proposed  a  line  of 
approach  more  likely  to  command  Lyon's  respect.  While 
barring  himself  from  the  combat,  he  was  watching  like  a  lynx 
for  signs  on  either  side  to  indicate  possible  leanings  toward 
accommodation  of  views.  If  he  had  known  less  about  the 
resistance  to  be  overcome  in  Lyon,  and  especially  around  him, 
the  next  few  sentences  would  have  given  him  the  feeling  that, 
as  Graham  fortified  his  position,  all  was  settled  but  the  for- 
malities : — 

"I'm  taking  a  flyer  that  you  yourself,  Mr.  Lyon,  will  turn 
out  to  be  a  case  in  point,"  w\as  Graham's  next  advance.  "The 
old  words  and  the  old  social  arrangements  can  do  a  whole  lot 
to  keep  the  new  ideas  from  showing  what  is  in  them,  but  it's 
only  a  question  of  time.  Our  generation  learned  the  language 
of  things  fixed  in  an  eternal  state,  but  we  couldn't  think  things 
that  way  to  save  our  necks.  Every  day  of  our  lives  w^e  get  a 
little  nearer  to  change  of  base  from  things  as  they  are  classi- 
fied to  things  as  they  work.  The  nearer  we  get  to  that  point 
the  less  are  we  able  to  accept  anything  because  it  is,  and  we 
put  everything  in  the  suspect  class  till  it  can  justify  itself 
by  what  it  does.  If  poetry,  as  someone  said,  is  anybody's 
tho\ight  until  it  is  everybody's,  then  I'm  poet  enough  to  hold 
that  business  will  be  just  bushwhacking  with  its  clothes 
changed  till  we  go  at  every  question  that  comes  up  anywhere 
in  the  neighborhood  of  business,  as  the  War  College  fellows 
handle  their  problems.  It  doesn't  matter  whether  they  label 
themselves  Uncle  Sam  or  .Tohn  Bull;  they  want  to  know  just 
how  strong  or  weak  a  position  is,  and  how  much  force  could 
be  brought  against  it.  If  they  started  in  by  getting  mad  and 
swearing  they'd  court-martial  the  first  man  that  dared  to  dis- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


puto  their  theory,  it  wouldn't  take  them  long  to  fall  out  of  the 
.strategy  procession." 

''That's  all  right,  Mr.  Graham,"  ratified  Lyon  cordially, 
"but  if  it  came  to  he  war,  instead  of  War  College,  and  the 
enemy  assaulted  position  and  theory  at  once,  the  War  College 
chaps  -wouldn't  be  good  for  much  until  they  got  mad  and  hit 
back.  I'm  with  you.  though,  that  this  armistice  means,  for 
the  time  being,  War  College  and  not  w^ar.  I'll  be  the  Avery 
fortifications,  and  you  may  hammer  me  with  all  the  theoret- 
ical bombardments  you  please.  My  defense  will  be  simply 
that  when  you  undertake  to  apply  your  theories  in  real  war, 
you  will  shoot  your  bolt  with  the  collapse  of  your  commis- 
sariat. Upper  ether  and  angels'  food  will  never  support  opera- 
tions on  terra  firma." 

"I'll  come  to  that  a  little  later,"  noted  Graham,  "but  as  I'm 
the  attacking  party  it  won't  do  any  hann  for  me  to  locate 
myself  with  reference  to  the  Articles  of  War.  You  may  have 
another  order  of  importance  for  the  clauses,  but  I'd  like  to 
mention  two  or  three.  Whatever  you  suspect  about  the  'upper 
ether  and  angels'  food,'  I  suppose  it  isn't  necessary  for  me  to 
prove  in  the  first  place  that  I've  made  good  in  developing  a 
base  of  supplies  of  your  own  sort.  If  I  had  made  a  fizzle  of 
business,  and  had  taken  to  reforming  the  world  as  an  easier 
job,  you  might  be  safe  in  calculating  that  I  couldn't  fight  with 
your  weapons.  You  know^  Avhat  every  bank  in  Chicago  knows, 
however,  about  my  rating,  and  how  I  got  it;  and  that  settles 
the  question  whether  I  have  a  business  head.  Then  you  want 
to  know  whether,  outside  of  my  personal  resources,  I  have 
the  wherewithal  to  support  my  undertaking.  You  want  to 
know  whether  I  am  honest;  whether  I  am  fighting  or  black- 
mailing; and  you  want  to  know^  whether  I  have  mapped  out  a 
campaign  on  a  theory  that  will  hold  water.  After  all,  this  last 
is  the  main  thing  for  a  War  College,  and  the  other  items 
are  negligible.  To  save  strength  for  the  heart  of  the  prob- 
lem, you  can  afford  to  assume  at  present  that  I  am  what  I 
pretend. 

"While  I  am  about  it."  Graham  parenthesized  further,  with 
one  of  his  arrestive  index-finger  gestures,  "I  may  as  well  re- 
peat to  you  what  I've  said  a  hundred  times  to  labor  audiences, 
but  it  may  not  have  got  to  your  ears.  I  have  no  ill-will  w^hat- 
ever  toward  the  Avery  Company.  I  am  very  sorry  it  must 
suffer  anything  from  me.     If  you  directors  and  the  rest  of 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


the  owners  could  just  go  through  what  the  theology  that 
Halleck  is  bringing  down  to  date  used  to  call  'a  work  of  grace/ 
you'd  be  the  very  lads  I'd  expect  most  from  in  booming  de- 
mocracy. I'd  much  rather  be  with  you  than  against  you,  if 
you'd  get  on  the  right  side ;  and  until  a  lot  of  your  kind  do 
get  on  the  right  side  democracy  is  going  to  be  mostly  a  pros- 
pectus." 

"It's  a  romantic  sort  of  affection,"  ruminated  Lyon,  ''that 
first  endorses  its  neighbor  as  a  desirable  citizen,  and  then  picks 
him  out  as  the  one  man  in  town  to  shoot  at!" 

"We  can't  institutionalize  ourselves,"  Graham  pronounced 
deliberately,  "and  forever  get  away  with  the  profits  without 
the  liabilities.  You  get  the  law  to  re-create  you  as  one  of  its 
artificial  persons  whose  life-breath  is  capitalism.  That  same 
principle  which  supports  your  artificial  person  is  the  most 
wasting  parasite  of  democracy.  Everybody  who  uses  his  brains 
knows  that  either  democracy  or  capitalism  must  sooner  or 
later  swallow  the  other.  Everyone  who  prefers  that  democracy 
should  do  the  swallowing  is  bound  to  hunt  capitalism  as  long 
as  it  keeps  out  of  democracy's  game-bag." 

"Talking  about  passionless  logic,"  mused  Lyon,  "your  li- 
cense to  hound  capital,  whether  it  has  offended  or  not,  is  an 
interesting  replica  of  the  lamb  getting  his  for  spoiling  the 
drinking  water  of  the  wolf  up-stream." 

"At  any  rate,"  corrected  Graham,  as  he  felt  that  they  were 
gradually  getting  into  close  quarters,  "let's  not  lose  our  range 
by  confusing  the  landmarks  before  Ave  open  fire.  My  quarrel 
is  not  with  capital  but  with  capitalism.  To  keep  out  of  sav- 
agery, democracy  must  have  capital  as  much  as  it  must  have 
food.  Capital  is  as  different  from  capitalism  as  water  is  from 
drowning.  I  mean  by  'capitalism'  a  vicious  principle  of  ac- 
cumulation institutionalized,  along  with  its  chartered  as- 
sumption that  the  procurers  for  the  princujile  are  fore- 
ordained to  dictate  the  remaining  destinies  of  mankind.  The 
fate  of  democracy  will  turn  on  its  ability  to  put  that  assump- 
tion out  of  commission  ;  and  every  crusader  against  capitalism 
is  bound  to  assault  it  wherever  it  is  exposed." 

"That  may  be  good  piracy,"  recoiled  Lyon,  with  signs 
that  looked  squally  for  the  War  College  agreement,  "but  I 
take  it  you're  claiming  nothing  for  its  morals  or  its  man- 
ners." 

329 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


"I  am  claiming  everything  due  to  the  morals  and  the  man- 
ners of  the  bayonet  in  a  righteous  cause,"  devoutly  answered 
Graham. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  braggart  in  his  measured  utter- 
ance. ITis  calmness,  almost  solenniity,  halted  Lyon's  slip  to- 
ward contempt,  and  revived  the  impression  of  the  Armory, 
that  the  man  was  not  only  in  earnest,  but  had  thought  his  case 
through,  and  was  sure  of  his  ability  to  maintain  his  position. 
For  a  few  seconds  neither  spoke.  Then,  with  the  emphasis 
of  repression,  and  with  the  same  retarded  tempo,  Graham  re- 
sumed : — 

"Nothing  worth  doing  is  ever  done  on  time,  whether  it  is 
e.\})elling  the  Turks  from  Europe  or  introducing  livelier  sub- 
stitutes for  psalm  tunes,  until  some  one  takes  his  life  in  his 
hand.  In  this  particular  passage  in  the  advent  of  democracy, 
the  one  thing  needful  is  to  save  its  force  from  dissipation  on 
detached  cases,  and  to  get  a  decisive  line-up  between  the  prin- 
ciples behind  the  cases.  More  than  that,  democracy  can  never 
pass  into  the  scientific  stage  till  men  whom  capitalism  has 
trained  have  been  won  over  to  enlist  their  talents  on  the  hu- 
man side  of  the  process.  Count  the  egotism  for  all  you  will 
against  me,  but  I  believe  I  have  as  providential  a  call  as  any- 
body ever  had  to  anything,  to  spend  my  life  working  toward  a 
square  deal  between  democracy  and  business.  Thus  far,  the 
whole  paltry  catalogue  of  industrial  caterwaulings,  since  capi- 
talism began  to  get  in  its  work,  has  been  mostly  hysteric  fid- 
dling of  particular  discords  out  of  the  concert,  with  scarcely 
a  decent  attempt  to  find  out  whether  there  were  such  things 
as  underlying  laws  of  harmony.  So  long  as  the  democratic 
side  of  the  conflict  of  principles  can  be  broken  up  into  a  bed- 
lam of  individuals  disconnectedly  tuning  instiTiments,  capi- 
talism can  fasten  itself  firmer  on  the  world.  I  regard  myself 
as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,  'Prepare  the  way  for  some- 
thing better!'  What  little  there  turns  out  to  be  in  me  is  en- 
listed for  life  to  organize  Americans  on  the  principles  of  real 
democracy,  and  to  drill  them  for  a  fair  fight  with  capitalism. 
The  Avery  strike  is  merely  the  opening  gun.  It  is  easy  to 
divide  history  into  epochs  in  which  people  fought  one  an- 
other with  their  best  eye  shut.  The  boundary  is  drawn  be- 
tween epochs  at  the  point  w^here  people  at  last  find  out  what 
has  hurt  them,  and  what  they  have  been  fighting  about,  and 
what  they  want,  and  sum  up  their  findings  in  something 

330 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


fundamental,  and  end  the  quarrels  that  uncertainty  about 
this  base  line  has  bred,  by  taking  it  henceforth  as  their  com- 
mon point  of  departure.  For  a  hundred  years  or  more  capi- 
talism has  been  a  gathering  mutiny  of  the  minority  in  every 
democratic  ship  of  state.  There  is  no  covering  up  the  ques- 
tion of  principle  any  longer.  It  is  a  plain  issue  between  the 
mutineers  and  the  ship." 

Halleck  wished  he  could  hear  Graham  declaim  that  pas- 
sage in  his  most  dramatic  style  before  an  audience  that  would 
cram  the  Auditorium.  It  had  been  spoken  slowly,  gently,  but 
almost  as  fervently  as  a  novice's  vow  of  consecration.  It  af- 
fected Lyon  more  than  he  cared  to  show,  especially  as  he 
liked  Graham  personally  the  better  for  it;  but  he  wa,s  irri- 
tated by  what  he  had  schooled  himself  to  regard  as  sentiment- 
alizing practical  matters,  and  there  was  no  concealment  of  it 
in  his  frosty  objection: — 

"Suppose  we  cut  out  this  sort  of  rehearsal  for  the  jury,  and 
put  the  case  in  shape  for  the  court.  You  could  easily  make 
the  solar  system  look  ridiculous,  if  you  expressed  it  in  terms 
of  a  Summer-garden-thriller  outfit,  but  it  wouldn't  help  much 
toward  revising  the  law  of  gravitation.  This  whole  play-to- 
the-gallery  trifling  with  the  foundations  of  society  is  criminal 
the  minute  anyone  threatens  to  take  it  seriously.  You  and  I 
can't  afford  to  waste  any  more  time  on  this  comic  supplement 
style  of  rhetoric.  Turn  off  the  hot  air,  but  I'm  open  to  argu- 
ment on  anything  under  the  sun  that  can  be  put  into  a  busi- 
ness proposition." 

"Very  well,"  responded  Graham  good  naturedly,  ''I've  for- 
gotten most  of  my  law  language,  and  all  that  I  ever  knew 
about  pleadings,  but  you  are  no  more  anxious  than  I  am  to 
get  our  case  into  literal  terms  that  we  can  both  accept  as  the 
basis  of  argument.  In  a  word,  this  is  my  contention : — The 
whole  economic  and  social  theory  which  modern  business 
takes  for  granted  is  radically  mistaken.  Our  social  problems 
are  partly  due  to  conditions  beyond  human  control,  but 
partly  also  to  our  fallacious  theory  of  the  conditions  we  may 
control.  We  shall  never  get  on  a  secure  basis  for  industrial 
peace  until  we  overhaul  our  whole  social  theory,  and  reorgan- 
ize business  according  to  a  more  intelligent  analysis  of  the 
facts." 

331 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    WAR    COLLEGE 


"Now  we  are  getting  down  to  brass  tacks,"  relented  Lyon. 
''No  matter  whether  I  admit  anything  or  not,  I'll  save  my 
argnment  till  I've  heard  your  bill  of  particnlars." 

''There  ought  to  be  a  few  rulings  from  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peals," expanded  Graham,  "before  the  law  that  I  have  to  as- 
sume is  perfectly  clear;  but  our  test  ca.'^es  are  principally  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  those  rulings.  The  people  a  few  gen- 
erations from  now  who  inherit  our  social  axioms  with  the 
tangles  straightened  out,  will  be  able  to  give  an  account  of  the 
social  process  that  will  make  our  present  philosophy  look 
silly.  You  would  probably  challenge  what  I  would  lay  down 
as  first  principles;  so  I  will  start  a  good  way  this  side  of  the 
first,  with  an  allegation  of  fact,  viz : — Our  whole  social  order 
is  an  attempt  to  do  business  on  an  economic  basis  that  is  a 
mathematical  absurdity." 

"I  can't  help  interi-upting,"  Lyon  again  resisted,  "to  ask 
why,  if  it's  as  bad  as  that,  the  economists  haven't  found  it  out 
long  ago?" 

"Plenty  of  them  have,"  assured  Graham,  with  a  glance  that 
seemed  to  say  he  was  glad  to  be  reminded  of  something.  "I 
am  not  the  first  to  see  through  the  fallacy  of  capitalism  by 
any  means;  but  the  men  who  have  been  in  the  saddle  have 
been  able  to  run  everj^  one  off  the  range  who  showed  signs  of 
getting  wise  to  the  system.  Those  that  hadn't  shown  the 
signs  soon  saw  how  things  were  going,  and  kept  still.  The 
consequence  has  been  that  practical  men  and  theorists  the 
world  over  have  been  in  cahoots  to  keep  up  the  credit  of  every 
one  who  looked  at  things  through  the  capitalistic  illusion, 
and  they  have  managed  to  get  everybody  on  the  blacklist  who 
threatened  to  see  things  as  they  are." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  open  another  rhetoric  valve,"  disparaged 
Lyon.    "Have  you  anything  more  under  the  head  of  facts?" 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


] 


THE   ILLUSION   OF  CAPITALISM 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 

XX 

THE    ILLUSION    OF   CAPITALISM 

"The  only  producers  of  wealth  are  nature  and  labor 

nature  and  labor  always  supply  the  power,  while  capital 
is  merely  the  grist  and  the  millstone." 


THERE  was  apparent  common  consent  to  regard  the  pre- 
liminaries as  arranged,  and  the  disputants  now  settled 
down  for  hard  work. 

"I'll  ask  you  for  your  own  answer  to  that  question,"  prom- 
ised Graham,  "after  you  have  sampled  my  specifications.  To 
begin  with,  capitalism  banks  on  the  assumption  that  capital 
itself  is  productive.  Now  unless  you  make  the  shell  game  out 
of  your  words,  and  put  one  meaning  into  the  term  'capital' 
this  minute  and  another  the  next,  every  penny  of  capital  in 
the  world  is  as  sterile  as  a  monthly  statement.  All  we  have 
to  do  to  show  this  is  to  imitate  the  chemists,  for  instance,  and 
'isolate  our  phenomena.'  Strip  away  from  capital  everything 
that  is  the  spontaneous  working  of  nature  on  the  one  hand, 
or  the  exertion  of  human  energy  on  the  other,  and  capital  no 
more  produces  anything  than  the  pyramids  or  the  merid- 
ians." 

"I  don't  want  to  quibble,  Mr.  Graham,"  interposed  Lyon, 
"and  I  am  not  going  to  be  patient  when  you  do  it.  That 
sounds  to  me  very  much  like  the  fake  algebra  that  proves  one 
is  equal  to  zero." 

"The  fake  algebra  has  been  so  long  on  your  side  of  the  case, 
Mr.  Lyon,"  retorted  Graham,  "that  it  makes  the  whole  fact 
of  aberration  which  I  am  pointing  out.  Take  a  bar  of  bullion 
in  a  bank  vault,  for  instance.  It  might  lie  there  forever  with- 
out adding  a  millionth  part  to  itself.  Nevertheless  capitalism 
permits  that  bullion  to  be  in  Chicago,  while  the  man  who  owns 
it  lives  in  Europe,  yet  the  owner  may  collect  a  percentage  of 
the  value  every  year,  and  pass  on  to  his  descendants  the  priv- 
ilege of  continuing  the  collection,  till  they  have  used  up  its 
equivalent  over  and  over  again;  but  the  original  claim  to  the 
bullion  is  as  good  as  ever.  This  scheme  has  all  the  other  con 
games  beat  to  a  frazzle.  The  only  producers  of  wealth  are  na- 
ture and  labor.    When  wealth  is  once  produced,  labor  can  use 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


some  of  it  as  capital,  in  the  form  of  support  for  workers,  raw 
material,  tools,  et^?.,  and  thereby  make  its  cooperation  with 
nature  much  more  productive;  but  nature  and  labor  ahvays 
supply  the  power,  while  capital  is  merely  the  grist  and  the 
millstone." 

"How  can  a  man  of  your  business  experience,"  snapped 
Lyon,  "talk  as  though  that  reserve  of  bullion  in  the  vaults  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  prosperity  of  business?" 

"How  can  a  man  of  your  intelligence,"  paraphrased  Gra- 
ham, "talk  as  though  having  something  to  do  with  the  pros- 
perity^ of  business,  and  the  'productivity  of  capital,'  are  one 
and  the  same  thing?"  Graham  was  wondering  w'hether  he 
was  dealing  with  the  ordinary  opaqueness  of  the  capitalistic 
class  bias,  or  only  with  a  lawyer's  ingenuity  in  putting  the 
best  face  on  anything  that  could  favor  his  client.  "You  might 
just  as  well  talk  about  the  productivity  of  the  plate  you  eat 
your  soup  from.  If  you're  exploiting  fallacies,  you've  got 
your  artful  dodger  middle  term  'productivity,'  and  you  can 
shuffle  it  back  and  forth  to  suit  the  devil ;  but  if  you're  after 
the  facts,  you  don't  talk  of  the  productivity  of  the  plate  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  you  speak  of  the  productivity  of  the  soil 
or  of  the  farmer." 

Lyon  saw  no  reason  for  taking  issue  wdth  this  obvious 
logical  precision.  He  had  even  been  preparing  for  it  by  a 
side  line  of  reflection  about  Edgerly's  argument  to  the  Pa- 
triarchs on  arbitrary  associations  between  capital  and  prop- 
erty. He  was  too  acute  not  to  appreciate  these  abstract  dis- 
tinctions, but  his  honest  estimate  of  their  importance  for  prac- 
tical purposes  w^as  in  the  slurring  comment: — "I  see  no  ob- 
ject in  denying  that  you've  split  your  words  with  the  grain 
this  time,  but  I'd  as  soon  argue  a  tailors'  strike  on  the  ques- 
tion which  blade  of  the  shears  cuts." 

"You  know  that  isn't  fair!"  challenged  Graham,  with  his 
first  touch  of  bitterness.  "Not  w^hich  blade  cuts,  but  whether, 
in  the  last  analysis  the  shears  cut  or  the  hand  that  holds  them, 
is  the  'Art  thou  the  King  of  the  Jews?'  of  the  capitalistic  crisis. 
If  you  can't  make  cold  science  read  the  signs  of  the  times, 
what  is  your  sense  of  humor  doing  that  it  doesn't  put  you  on 
to  the  saturnine  paradox  leering  out  of  every  line  in  your 
position  ?  You  advertise  business  as  the  only  rock-ribbed  hu- 
man structure  of  literal  matter-of-factness.  At  the  same  time 
it  doesn't  strike  you  as  at  all  incongruous  that  the  founda- 

338 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


tion  of  your  bullying  realism  is  a  mystic  Mephistophelian 
metai^liysic  of  values  in  matter  fated  to  overrule  the  values  in 
men.  It  isn't,  as  your  brute  money  ultimatums  always  imply, 
a  monks'  question  of  the  capacity  of  a  needle  point  as  a  dis- 
embodied spirits'  dancing  floor.  It  is  capitalism's  way  of 
prejudging  in  its  own  favor  the  whole  question  of  men's  place 
in  the  world." 

The  stiffness  in  Lyon's  silence  may  have  been  more  ex- 
pressive than  words.  Graham  had  no  doubt  of  its  meaning. 
He  rose  mechanically,  and  backing  into  the  farthest  corner, 
stood  blinking  from  one  to  the  other  like  a  man  coming  out 
of  a  dream.  The  mood  passed  in  a  moment;  and  returning 
to  his  seat,  with  a  careless  air  of  release  from  duty  to  recrea- 
tion, he  resumed  on  a  lower  level: 

"I've  canvassed  this  thing  so  many  times,  from  bottom  to 
top  and  end  to  end,  I  can't  realize  that  there's  a  debatable 
hair's  breadth  in  it.  It's  like  cramping  myself  back  into  an 
unconvinced  state  of  mind  about  the  spelling  of  words  of  one 
syllable.  I  no  more  expect  to  revamp  our  economic  system  in 
a  minute  than  I  count  on  putting  our  locomotion  tomorrow  on 
an  air-ship  basis,  because  we  have  found  that  the  air  can  be 
navigated.  But  I  do  demand  that  honest  men  shall  be  as  will- 
ing, in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  to  admit  general  principles 
when  they  are  discovered,  and  to  stop  barring  the  way  of  find- 
ing out  what  use  they  can  be  put  to  in  furthering  human 
purposes." 

''Well,  Mr.  Graham,"  submitted  Lyon,  with  a  deep-drawn 
sigh  of  partially  reconciled  resignation,  "if  you'll  allow  me 
to  concede  once  for  all  that  there's  a  safe  reserve  of  star  mist 
vaporing  around  the  rim  of  space,  I'm  still  ready  to  consider 
the  question,  What  of  it?" 

Because  Graham  was  too  much  concerned  with  the  collision 
of  principles  to  be  fussy  about  his  personal  dignity,  he  merely 
smiled  at  the  sarcasm,  and  tried  another  approach. 

"As  I  was  saying,  then,"  Graham  repeated,  "our  whole  so- 
cial structure  rests  on  an  economic  assumption  that  is  a  mathe- 
matical absurdity;  and  the  chief  lure  into  this  absurdity  is 
the  productivity  theory  of  capital.  Now  let  me  take  a  con- 
crete case,  and  show  what  we  are  called  upon  to  believe  when 
we  pin  our  faith  to  that  prop  of  capitalism." 

Graham  produced  his  note  book,  and  holding  it  up  a  mo- 

330 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


ment,  with  his  fore-finger  between  the  paga=;  to  which  he  had 
quickly  turned,  he  further  prefaced: — 

"Let  us  see  now  on  which  side  is  the  star-gazing,  and  on 
which  the  arithmetic.  I've  carried  these  figures  around  with 
me  a  long  time,  and  have  tried  them  on  many  people.  The 
best  logic  any  one  has  ever  been  able  to  muster  against  them 
has  looked  more  like  an  attack  of  bronchitis.  Your  convincing 
mctai)hysic  of  capitalism  begins  by  endowing  capital  with 
a  unique  self-.'sufRciency  of  accretion.  Suppose  George  Wash- 
ington had  taken  one  step  more  in  fathering  his  country,  and 
had  left  to  his  posterity  a  perpetual  object-lesson  in  the  oper- 
ation of  this  alleged  Aladdin's-lamp  capacity  of  capital." 

Then,  referring  to  his  notes,  Graham  recited: — "In  1783, 
Congress  reimbursed  Washington  for  outlays  from  his  own 
means  during  the  war  in  the  sum  of  $64,315,  not  mentioning 
the  cents.  Suppose  Washington  had  decided  to  set  that  sum 
apart  forever  as  a  scientific  demonstration  of  the  creative 
power  of  capital.  Suppose  he  had  secured  an  act  of  Congress 
permitting  the  amount  to  accumulate  at  the  rate  of  four  per 
cent,  compounded  annually.  In  the  year  1913,  if  the  meta- 
physics worked  according  to  schedule,  that  modest  amount  of 
capital  would  have  become  $10,535,440,  and  it  would  then  be 
only  ju.st  starting  on  its  career." 

"But,"  pursued  Graham,  scanning  Halleck  and  Lyon  in 
turn  to  see  how  they  were  affected  by  the  illustration,  "we  all 
know  that  the  man  in  bu.?iness  who  doesn't  set  his  mark  for 
profits  as  high  as  ten  per  cent,  is  a  chump.  If  he  makes  that 
much  he  passes  as  fairly  successful.  To  count  as  a  financier 
he  has  got  to  make  his  capital  net  much  more.  Now  Wash- 
ington is  supposed  to  have  been  rather  canny  himself,  and  it 
would  do  injustice  to  his  memorj^  to  assume  that  he  w^ould 
have  been  satisfied  to  leave  posterity  only  a  partial  demonstra- 
tion of  a  fundamental  truth.  While  he  was  displaying  the 
power  of  capital  he  would  surely  demand  for  it  something  like 
a  decent  share  of  its  rights.  Let  us  suppose  that  he  compro- 
mised on  a  rate  of  ten  per  cent  compounded  annually.  Then 
he  would  have  provided  .subsequent  generations  with  some- 
thing like  a  respectable  exhibit  of  the  virtues  of  capital.  Again 
assuming  that  there  is  nothing  wrong  in  the  metaphysics,  the 
share  of  the  wealth  of  the  country  to  the  credit  of  that  invest- 
ment would  have  amounted  in  1913  to  the  somewhat  im- 
pressive total  of  fifteen  thousand  four  hundred  and  sixty-five 

340 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


million,  four  hundred  seventy  four  thousand,  three  hundred 
seventeen  dollars.  Compared  with  any  sum  in  the  possession 
of  a  living  money  magnate,  that  pile  would  be  as  a  flagstaff 
to  a  walking  stick!" 

Lyon  had  been  taught  the  productivity  theory  of  capital, 
and  he  accepted  it.  Moreover,  he  could  not  remember  that 
he  had  ever  heard  money  men  argue  the  rights  of  capital  with- 
out getting  most  of  their  leverage  more  or  less  directly  from 
that  'metaphysic/  as  Graham  termed  it.  He  was  at  the  point 
of  asserting  that  business  ability  of  course  would  have  to  be 
called  in  to  make  the  investment  profitable.  He  saw  at  once 
though  that  this  would  be  deserting  his  theory  under 
fire.  He  had  never  seen  the  facts  quite  in  the  light  of  the  illus- 
tration before,  and  no  answer  that  occurred  to  him  offered 
much  resistance  to  its  force.  He  was  really  playing  for  time 
when  he  entered  the  caveat: — "But  no  business  man  ever 
claimed  that  capital  can  roll  up  that  way  indefinitely!" 

It  was  Graham's  term  to  be  cynical.  Tilting  back  in  his 
chair,  with  the  manner  of  a  man  who  had  things  about  as  he 
wanted  them,  and  could  afford  to  let  other  people  do  the  wor- 
rying, he  composedly  demanded : — "Will  you  kindly  give  me 
the  address,  Mr.  Lyon,  of  any  one  outside  our  holy  economic 
hierarchy,  who  can  invite  his  soul  with  the  flattery  that  his 
theory  of  life  is  a  howling  success,  when  the  best  that  can  be 
said  in  its  favor  is  that  it  has  to  break  down  completely  in 
order  to  work  at  all  ?" 

Lyon  was  not  proud  of  himself  as  he  further  temporized : — 
"Suppose  you  explain  what  earthly  connection  there  is  be- 
tween your  figures  and  a  practical  business  proposition." 

No  man  was  quicker  to  detect  such  connections,  and  the 
present  instance  was  an  inconvenient  addition  to  the  visible 
supply  of  "unavailables,"  but  Lyon  was  not  prepared  to  admit 
that  it  was  more. 

"You  do  not  need  me  to  point  out  their  meaning,  Mr. 
Lyon,"  accused  Graham,  with  revived  intensity.  "They  show 
as  plain  as  the  sun  shining  in  the  heavens  that  the  whole  meta- 
physic vanishes  into  thin  air  the  moment  it  is  called  on  for  an 
accounting.  One  of  the  few  things  I  took  with  me  from  the 
history  of  philosophy  was  Kant's  moral  minimum: — 'Act  al- 
ways according  to  a  rule  that  is  fit  to  be  made  a  rule  by  every- 
body,' or  words  to  that  effect.  I  never  was  quite  sure  whether 
it  meant  anything  different  from  the  'Golden  Rule'  in  the 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


Sunday  School  version  ;  but  whether  there  is  an  extra  wrinkle 
in  it  or  not.  nothing  leps,  that  I  ever  ran  against,  could  make 
good  as  a  safe  standardizer  of  human  actions.  Your  capital- 
istic metaphysics  can't  do  business  in  the  same  firm  with  any- 
thing up  to  the  level  of  the  Kantian  ethics.  If  everybody 
started  at  once  to  act  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  presuppo- 
sitions of  your  economic  philosophy,  there  would  be  a  world- 
wide drop  into  barbarism  before  the  books  of  the  first  year's 
operations  were  closed,  and  general  starvation  in  another  year. 
The  scheme  seems  to  work,  first  because  only  a  small  fraction 
of  the  race  are  in  on  it,  and  second  because  we  are  still  sweep- 
ing in  the  rich  pickings  from  nature's  surface.  When  w^e  get 
to  the  bottom,  there  is  only  a  difference  of  detail  between  the 
capitalistic  programme  and  the  'woman's  bank'  plan  of  pay- 
ing dividends  on  earlier  deposits  from  the  later.  The  chain 
isn't  endless.    There  must  be  a  last  link,  and  then ?" 

There  was  a  cold  chisel  and  auger  effect  in  the  rigidity  of 
Lyon's  features  as  he  seemed  to  be  boring  into  the  argument. 
Getting  no  reply,  Graham  drew  out  his  conclusion. 

"I  have  used  the  Washington  illustration,"  he  explained, 

"simply  for  the  sake  of  the  general  fact.    And  I  ought  to 

have  said  at  the  start  that  this  particular  strike  marks  an  era 
in  labor  difficulties,  just  because  it  makes  an  issue  farther  back 
on  fundamental  grounds  than  any  other  labor  struggle  I  ever 
heard  of.  We  lay  down  the  principle  that  it  is  merely  putting 
off  the  ine\atable  day  of  reckoning  to  try  to  reconcile  labor 
differences  on  the  basis  of  the  present  economic  metaphysics; 
and  instead  of  puttering  to  improve  results  while  we  let  the 
causes  alone,  w^e  demand  a  rehearing  of  the  whole  theory  of 
capitalism.  Because  the  Avery  Company  stands  pat  on  the 
m3\stical  capitalistic  metaphysics,  instead  of  consenting  to  a 
readjustment  of  theories  to  facts,  we  have  got  to  make  our 
first  fight  against  it . 

"But  as  I  was  saying: — Whether  capital  is  actually  getting 
one  rate  or  another  doesn't  affect  the  principle.  We  are  ex- 
ploiting nature,  and  producing  wealth,  and  every  time  we 
turn  a  ton  of  goods  into  capital  w^e  add  a  corresponding 
amount  to  the  fixed  charges  on  the  world's  labor.  Now^  where 
is  this  extra  charge  to  come  from  ?  It  can  come  from  only  four 
sources:  First,  new  appropriations  of  nature;  second,  new^ 
technical  processes;  third,  new  labor  efficiency;  fourth,  sub- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


traction  from  some  one's  share  in  the  product.  Under  pres- 
ent conditions,  there  is  no  doubt  whose  share  it  will  be." 

It  was  less  the  force  of  the  reasoning  which  kept  Lyon  si- 
lent, than  his  surprise  at  the  unfamiliar  look  of  this  whole 
section  of  capitalistic  premises.  He  had  assumed  that  he  was 
at  home  in  economic  theory  from  A  to  Z.  He  was,  in  the  parts 
of  it  which  were  closest  to  everyday  application;  but  Gra- 
ham's argument  had  made  him  see  that  he  had  been  as  ama- 
teurish about  the  foundations  of  it  as  those  people  are  in  their 
religious  view^s  who  plant  themselves  on  the  ''cover-to-cover" 
conception  of  the  Bible.  While  Graham  did  not  quite  fathom 
Lyon's  reticence,  he  was  sure  he  was  making  an  impression, 
and  he  was  quick  to  follow  up  the  advantage. 

"If  every  scrap  of  surjDlus  wealth  had  been  consistently  cap- 
italized," he  recapitulated,  "from  the  wooden  soles  under  the 
peasant's  feet  to  the  bullion  in  tyrants'  chests,  civilization 
would  have  been  brought  to  a  standstill  before  it  had  fairly 
started.  We  could  no  more  carry  out  the  theory  of  capitalism 
than  we  could  make  our  industries  pay  a  royalty  on  every 
breath  we  draw.  We  have  got  to  find  a  theory  that  will  turn 
the  accumulations  of  the  race  to  the  reducing  of  fixed  charges 
instead  of  increasing  them.  We  are  bankrupting  the  world 
just  as  surely  by  attaching  a  cumulative  power  to  capital,  as 
though  we  were  levying  a  progressive  tax  on  industry  to  re- 
munerate the  ocean  for  its  uses  to  commerce." 

It  was  a  soiled  and  sallow  facetiousness  with  which  Lyon 
emerged  from  his  reflections ;  but  it  did  its  best  to  create  a  di- 
version. "Would  you  fight  me,  Mr.  Graham,"  insinuated 
Lyon,  "because  some  of  my  progenitors  believed  that  the  sin 
of  Adam  doomed  mo.st  of  mankind  to  hell?" 

"Getting  pretty  desperate  isn't  it,  Mr.  Lyon,  when  we  resort 
to  such  feeble  efforts?"  Graham's  laugh  was  as  stalwart  as  his 
logic,  and  his  whole  body  joined  in  a  pantomime  of  ridicule. 
"You  won't  convince  anybody  but  yourselves  that  you  are 
being  called  to  account  for  the  sins  of  your  ancestors.  We 
are  fighting  today's  sins  of  the  Avery  Company,  and  the  es- 
sence of  them  is  nothing  past  and  gone,  but  refusal  to  open 
the  question  whether  the  past  and  gone  must  always  dictate 
the  future.  We  have  inherited  a  theory  of  capital  which 
seemed  fairly  well  to  account  for  the  facts,  when  all  the  cap- 
ital there  was  consisted  virtually  of  tools  in  the  hands  of  the 
owners,  who  did  with  them  their  share  of  the  world's  work.  The 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


thoorv  is  a  barefaced  swindle  wlien  most  of  the  ('a))ital  that 
make?  the  trouble  is  out  of  sight  of  its  owners,  and  they  may 
or  may  not  do  any  i)art  of  the  world's  real  work  with  it.  As 
an  abstract  proposition,  which  I  know  as  well  as  you  do  we 
nuist  hold  subject  to  the  compelling  force  of  circumstances, 
there  is  no  more  sense  in  paying  a  royalty  to  ca[)ital  than  to 
the  alphabet  or  the  multiplication  table.  We  sui)port  insti- 
tutions, and  enforce  attendance  on  them,  for  putting  each 
generation  in  possession  of  the  world's  spiritual  accumula- 
tions, but  Avc  load  on  each  new  generation  a  periodical  and 
progressive  fine  for  using  our  material  accumulations.  I 
can't  pick  out  any  better  fun  than  puncturing  that  sort 
of  a  toy  balloon.  If  I  live  long  enough,  there's  going  to 
be  a  start  made  towards  a  fair  trial  of  the  question  why  our 
whole  system  of  social  accounting  should  not  be  shifted  from 
the  capitalistic  to  the  labor  basis." 

Lyon  foresaw  that  this  meant  a  turn  in  the  argument,  and 
he  felt  a  sense  of  relief  in  the  prospect  of  passing  to  more  fa- 
miliar fighting  ground.  INIeanwhile  he  hoped  to  escape  the 
appearance  of  having  yielded  anything,  by  the  reservation : — 
"Before  you  get  too  far  from  the  subject,  let  me  call  your  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  you  have  given  away  your  whole  case 
by  your  phrase  'compelling  force  of  circumstances.'  " 

"Foiled  again !"  repudiated  Graham,  mock-heroically. 
"When  I  say  'compelling  force  of  circumstances,'  I  make  full 
allowance  for  the  whole  scale  of  limitations,  from  natural  laws 
to  fillibustering  hypocrites, — and  what  is  life  anyway,  but  a 
matching  of  men  against  circumstances?  At  the  one  ex- 
treme we  get  the  absolute  bounds  of  possibility,  at  the  other 
the  rate  of  practicability.  The  force  of  circumstances  made 
it  a  long  time  after  men  knew  the  world  was  not  flat  before 
they  could  circle  it  in  eighty  days;  but  the  same  circumstances 
did  not  justify  the  'interests'  in  forcing  people  to  assume  that 
the  earth  was  flat  after  it  was  proved  to  be  round.  More  than 
that,  the  interests  were  presently  eliminated  from  the  cir- 
cumstances, and  men  have  been  working  out  their  salvation 
ever  since  on  a  round  world.  The  capitalistic  mythology 
may  die  harder  than  the  scholastic  cosmology,  but  the  'com- 
pelling force  of  circumstances'  can  no  more  bring  human 
progress  to  a  halt  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other." 

"Very  well  then,"  consented  Lyon  with  a  show  of  alacrity 
that  invited  inspection,  "for  the  sake  of  argument  let  us  sup- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    ILLUSION    OF    CAPITALISM 


pose  we  have  settled  something.  Now  what  have  we  got? 
Capital  is  incapable  of  unlimited  spontaneous  reproduction; 
therefore,  the  Avery  Company  is  under  obligations  to  deliver 
over  its  management  to  outsiders.  Have  I  stated  it  correctly, 
Mr.  Graham?" 

The  smile  that  relaxed  the  lines  of  Graham's  face  might 
have  been  put  on  to  greet  an  opponent's  excuses  for  losing  the 
first  hole.  Graham  was  too  good  a  sportsman  to  preen  him- 
self over  his  successes ;  but  for  the  sake  of  the  men  behind  him 
he  was  bound  to  keep  Lyon  on  the  defensive,  and  to  force  the 
fighting.  Allowing  a  pause  for  his  complacency  to  take  ef- 
fect, he  combined  the  two  purposes  in  his  next  line  of  at- 
tack : — 

"If  you  mean  to  assert  on  your  honor,  Mr.  Lyon,  that  you 
can  see  nothing  more  in  the  case  so  far,  I  am  quite  content  to 
let  it  rankle  in  your  conscience  for  the  present,  while  I  turn 
the  searchlight  on  another  weak  spot." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   FALLACY  OF   DISTRIBUTION 


THE    FALLACY     OF    DISTRIBUTION 


XXI 
THE   FALLACY   OF   DISTRIBUTION 

"A  theory  of  economic  distribution  which  assigns  an  in- 
come to  landlord  or  capitalist  for  any  other  reason  than 

that  which  assigns  a  wage  to  the  manual  laborer is 

not  merely  a  rape  of  justice  but  an  insult  to  ordinary 
intelligence." 

HALLECK  understood  Lyon  so  much  better  than  Graham 
did,  that  his  spirits  had  risen  with  every  turn  of  the  talk. 
He  knew  the  limitations  of  Lyon's  influence  in  the  Company, 
but  he  also  knew  its  strength.  He  knew  the  enormous  differ- 
ence between  Logan  and  his  father,  that  whereas  either  would 
stake  his  life  before  he  would  violate  his  code,  the  older  man 
was  sure  the  business  code  was  immutable,  while  the  younger 
was  equally  sure  of  the  abstract  proposition  that  the  morality 
of  business,  like  business  itself,  along  with  the  rest  of  life,  is 
perpetually  in  the  making.  Halleck  knew  that  Logan  had 
only  to  be  convinced  of  a  moral  weakness  in  the  Company's 
position  to  become  a  power  making  for  a  change  of  attitude. 
He  knew  that  nothing  was  so  likely  to  convince  Logan  of 
weakness  in  his  moral  premises  as  conviction  of  their  logical 
inconclusiveness.  He  could  see  that  Logan's  confidence  in 
what  Graham  called  the  'metaphysics'  of  business  had  been 
disturbed,  and  that  he  was  open  to  reason  about  alternative 
conceptions  of  the  economic  process.  It  remained  to  be  seen 
whether  enough  could  be  said  to  break  down  Lyon's  assump- 
tion that  no  other  conception  is  practical. 

There  was  less  carrying  power  in  Graham's  appraisal  of 
Lyon,  but  it  made  in  the  same  direction.  Graham  had  de- 
cided that  Lyon  was  not  the  sort  of  man  whose  moral  equa- 
tion was  dubious  after  he  was  convinced.  His  will  was  not 
the  wicked  partner  of  his  intellect.  He  would  not  change  to 
a  zealot  for  a  new  perception,  but  his  testimony  would  never 
be  perjured.  It  was  some  gain  to  show  him  that  there  were 
open  questions  about  the  antecedents  of  his  working  schedule ; 
and  Graham  deployed  his  reserves  with  an  assurance  that  lie 
had  not  felt  when  Halleck  proposed  the  conference. 

"My  second  specification,"  announced  Graham,  "is  that  the 
capitalistic  premises  of  distribution  are  as  shifty  as  the  myth- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


ologv  of  production.  And,"  he  interpolated,  "I  assume  it  is 
unnece.^sary  to  point  out  that  these  academic  abstractions  have 
about  the  same  interest  for  me  that  legal  technicalities  have 
for  you.  Either  may  make  or  mar  real  fortunes,  and  there- 
fore they  must  be  watched ;  but  they  are  merely  incidental  to 
the  main  concern.  My  case  is,  in  a  word,  that  the  premises 
of  capitalism  construe  human  relations  as  they  are  not,  and 
that  business  and  law  compel  acceptance  of  those  premises 
by  a  conspiracy  of  force.  I  am  showing  up  your  premises  not 
to  win  a  debate,  but  to  locate  the  real  issue.  The  Avery  Com- 
pany is  simply  capitalism  personified  at  one  spot,  clamping 
the  strait-jacket  of  an  arbitrary  conception  of  life  upon  the 
men  who  work  with  nature  and  give  the  world  its  wealth. 
The  organization  that  you  are  fighting  personifies  humanity 
demanding  the  freedom  of  its  functions.  If  human  evolu- 
tion has  passed  into  its  senility  we  may  lose;  but  the  workers 
of  the  world  are  its  optimists." 

Lyon  was  again  hesitating  between  irritation  and  amuse- 
ment. Ordinarily  he  would  have  dismissed  such  fluency  of 
figurative  expression  as  jugglers'  passes  to  distract  attention 
from  clues  to  the  illusion.  He  had  heard  Graham  enough 
though  to  be  sure  that,  right  or  wrong,  he  was  not  pushing 
for^-ard  a  water-color  perspective  in  advance  of  his  calcula- 
tions and  blue  prints.  Indeed  he  was  beginning  to  suspect 
that,  if  Graham  could  be  refuted,  it  would  not  be  because  his 
thinking  had  been  shallower  than  that  of  the  system  he  at- 
tacked. Graliam  had  apparently  taken  the  measure  of  that 
veteran  philosophy.  The  correction  would  have  to  come  from 
analysis  and  reconstruction  that  would  retire  both  tradition 
and  revolt. 

Lyon  dismissed  the  impulse,  which  had  been  strong  earlier 
in  the  interview,  to  treat  Graham  as  a  word-artist  instead  of 
a  thinker;  but  he  tried  to  keep  up  the  appearance  of  regard- 
ing his  heresy  as  a  joke. 

"If  you  hadn't  labeled  it,  Mr.  Graham,"  Lyon  criticized 
triflingly,  "I  should  never  have  thought  of  calling  it  a  'de- 
bate.' You  might  have  got  to  me  if  you  had  said  'selections 
from  a  suffragette  lyric  contest.'  " 

Graham  was  not  thrown  out  of  his  stride  a  moment  by 
Lyon's  sarcasm,  and  it  was  as  easy  to  keep  ahead  of  him  in 
that  mood  as  in  their  most  serious  temper.  The  answer  was 
ready: — "Don't  you  suppose  the  gum-shoe  man  thinks  it's 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


very  flippant  of  the  watchman  to  snap  his  dark  lantern  and 
show  up  the  job?  And  if  objections  to  the  jocundity  were 
spoken  out,  don't  you  suppose,  under  the  circumstances,  the 
levity  would  be  likely  to  continue?  If  I  illuminate  a  little 
vividly,  it's  just  the  jovial  way  old-fashioned  honesty  some- 
times has  with  certain  types  of  shrinking  innocence  that  pre- 
fer to  operate  in  the  dark." 

The  three  men  spontaneously  granted  themselves  a  brief 
interlude  of  unbending  over  the  invasion  of  this  variety  of 
esthetic  criticism  into  the  argument;  but  the  intermission 
ended  as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun,  and  Graham  forged  ahead 
with  his  line  of  thought : — 

"I  might  have  remained  so  stupidly  technical  that  nothing 
but  the  Uriah  Heepish  old  fictions  would  have  appeared  in 
the  general  effect;  but  since  you  have  called  my  attention  to 
it,  I  may  as  well  play  up  the  lights  and  shadows  with  a  lurid- 
ness  that  will  bring  out  some  resemblance  to  reality.  I  had  in 
mind  a  historical  disquisition  at  this  point,  on  how  we  hap- 
pened to  be  tangled  up  in  the  philosophy  of  life  that  the  Avery 
Company  represents.  No  sane  man  could  find  that  set  of 
connections  in  present-day  facts,  if  he  didn't  carry  it  to  them 
from  some  snap-judgment  in  the  pa.st.  In  deference  to  your 
appreciation  of  my  poetic  gifts,  Mr.  Lyon,  I  will  vary  the  treat- 
ment and  put  it  this  way : — 

''Adam  Smith  missed  the  chance  of  his  life  to  smother 
capitalism  in  the  cradle,  by  not  having  the  courage  of  his  in- 
sight. He  started  out  to  say  tliat  nature  and  labor  were  the 
only  producers ;  but  British  society  stared  him  out  of  counte- 
nance, and  he  forgot  it.  He  saw  Englishmen  divided  into 
landlords,  capitalists  and  laborers;  whereupon  he  intoned  a 
Gloria  over  the  eternal  fitness  of  things,  and  improvised  the 
Holy  Gospel  that  ever  since  heads  all  the  rest  in  upper-class 
prayer  books: — 'Land,  labor  and  capital  are  the  factors  of 
production,  therefore  landlord,  laborer  and  capitalist  must 
be  the  parties  in  distribution.'  It  was  a  little  looser  thinking 
than  we  should  do  if  we  observed  that  owners,  passengers  and 
crew  are  the  classes  visibly  connected  with  an  Atlantic  liner; 
and  forthwith  concluded: — 'Owners,  passengers  and  crew 
make  the  ship  go;  therefore,  owners,  passengers  and  crew 
divide  the  proceeds  of  the  trip.'  " 

"Let's  see,"  arrested  Lyon,  with  further  backslidden  irrev- 
erence; "isn't  that  the  old  refrain,  instead  of  a  new  stanza?" 

351 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


Graham  saw  at  once  that  there  was  something  to  be  said  for 
the  charge,  but  he  bruslied  it  away  in  the  same  tone  in  which 
it  was  made.  "You're  evidently  not  keen  for  this  style  of  art, 
Mr.  Lyon.  It's  not  the  old  refrain  but  the  second  movement 
in  the  symphony.  Your  ear  sifts  out  some  of  the  original  mate- 
rial, but  doesn't  locate  the  new  purpose.  I'm  not  going  to 
argue  the  productivity  question  over  again ;  but  I  am  now 
showing  that  your  metaphysic  of  production  commits  you  to 
an  entirely  disqualifying  preconception  of  distribution.  Your 
a.ssumption  of  something  that  isn't  so  about  production  puts 
you  in  a  position  where  you  can  no  more  see  straight  about 
distribution  than  you  can  forecast  the  behavior  of  a  kaleido- 
scope. When  it  is  called  on  to  the  limit  of  its  liabilities,  your 
traditional  capitalistic  philosophy  has  no  consistent  way  of 
denying  that  legal  holders  of  property  deserve  a  share  of  cur- 
rent earnings,  whether  they  help  along  the  work  that  creates 
the  earnings  or  not.  I  will  not  match  that  stupidity  by  a 
sweeping  denial  that  landlords  and  capitalists  deserve  a  share 
of  the  world's  earnings.  That  would  be  as  silly  as  the  mis- 
take it  is  up  to  us  to  correct.  I  am  not  going  to  enter  a  so- 
cialistic extreme  in  competition  with  the  capitalistic  extreme, 
and  of  course,  whether  I  have  a  saner  mean  or  not,  we  haven't 
time  to  argue  the  matter  through  to  a  demonstration.  I  want 
at  least  to  get  one  proposition  clearly  before  your  mind.  It 
is  this : — Instead  of  resting  on  unquestionable  facts,  another 
angle  of  modern  business  principles  has  for  its  sole  logical 
support  a  perfectly  juvenile  fiction.  You  oppose  to  the  claims 
of  laborers  in  distribution  of  surplus  the  preferred  claims  of 
landlord  and  capitalist.  Now,  to  be  perfectly  literal,  and  neg- 
lecting the  landlord  factor  for  the  sake  of  simplicity,  the 
reasoning  which  business  theory  takas  for  granted, — and  I 
will  give  it  credit  in  this  digest  for  more  than  it  desen'es — 
amounts  to  this : — first,  there  is  a  distinctly  defined  function 
for  the  capitalist  in  the  industrial  process ;  second,  the  capital- 
ist always  performs  that  function ;  therefore,  the  capitalist  is 
always  entitled  to  any  surplus  that  remains  after  covering  the 
cost  of  production." 

"Don't  let  it  stop  the  good  work,  Mr.  Graham,"  Lyon  en- 
couraged, with  an  expression  suggestive  of  a  water-poloist  com- 
ing to  the  surface  after  a  submerged  scrimmage.  "I  want  to 
express  my  gratitude,  however,  while  I  have  a  chance,  for  a 
few  words  that  I  can  understand  without  a  libretto." 

352 


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THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


"Thanks  for  the  remittance,  which  we  have  duly  entered  in 
our  books,"  acknowledged  Graham,  neither  swerving  from  his 
course  nor  crumphng  his  serenity.  "If  I  do  not  run  short 
of  the  same  pellucid  parts  of  speech,  I  may  make  myself  still 
further  understood.  I  wanted  to  submit  for  your  considera- 
tion a  parallel  case.  For  instance,  we  all  agree  that  a  trader  is 
presumably  a  useful  member  of  society.  Does  that  major 
premise  take  away  your  right  to  refuse  payment  of  a  bill  pre- 
sented by  a  particular  trader,  until  you  have  checked  up  the 
items  to  see  whether  he  has  delivered  the  goods?  What  1  am 
getting  at  is  this : — There  are  normal  and  necessary  functions 
of  management  in  connection  with  land  and  capital;  and  a 
corresponding  return  is  due  to  landlord  and  capitalist  who 
perform  the  functions.  Our  laws  of  property,  however,  make 
it  possible  for  many  people  to  be  in  the  landlord  or  capi- 
talist class,  while  they  evade  the  functions  normally  per- 
formed by  the  class;  yet  they  collect  the  emoluments  due  to 
the  functions,  and  many  of  them  a  great  deal  more.  This  is 
where  I  over-credited  your  fundamental  reasoning.  In  order 
to  get  your  capitalistic  premises  adopted  at  all,  something  of 
the  functional  idea  had  to  be  in  them  at  the  start,  and  it  is 
always  smuggled  back  into  them  when  they  are  brought  to 
book.  In  its  workings,  however,  your  metaphysics,  both  of 
production  and  of  distribution,  assigns  the  emolument  to  the 
status  of  landlord  or  capitalist,  not  less  than  the  functions. 
It  follows  that  you  are  helpless  to  show  sound  reasons  why 
not,  when  directors  vote  to  themselves  and  their  stockhold- 
ing pals  a  return  that  is  all  out  of  proportion  to  their  services ; 
or  when  a  worthless  son  of  an  industiious  father  becomes  a 
riotous  spender  of  the  income  his  father's  capital  fur- 
nishes; or  when  his  weak-headed  daughter  takes  the  income 
to  Europe  and  invests  it  in  experimental  husbands.  A  theory 
of  economic  distribution  which  assigns  an  income  to  landlord 
or  capitalist  for  any  other  reason  than  that  which  assigns  a 
wage  to  the  manual  laborer — namely,  that  each  after  his  kind 
is  expected  to  be  a  useful  worker,  and  when  he  meets  the  ex- 
pectation is  entitled  simply  to  the  fair  wage  of  his  work— -is 
not  merely  a  rape  of  justice,  but  an  insult  to  ordinary  in- 
telligence." 

In  this  instance  it  was  not  so  much  his  usual  feeling  that 
the  unrepresented  interest  needed  i)rotection,  which  disturbed 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


Lyon's  passive  attitude,  as  it  was  the  patience  of  assured 
strength  deciding  itself  no  longer  a  virtue.  Lyon  did  not 
reckon  himself  anywhere  near  admission  that  the  whole  tra- 
ditional substructure  of  business  was  as  flimsy  as  Graham  rep- 
resented. It  was  not  as  true  of  him  as  of  his  father  that  busi- 
ness seemed  as  self-aflirmative  as  the  tides  or  the  seasons.  The 
difference,  however,  was  merely  in  degree ;  and  Logan  unsus- 
pectingly accepted  this  self-sufficiency  of  business  as  confirm- 
ing the  theories  by  which  business  had  been  explained.  The 
instability  of  his  position  was  in  precisely  this  relation.  Un- 
der close  scrutiny  it  turns  out  that  the  one  arc  of  this  vicious 
circle  has  no  necessary  connection  with  the  other  arc.  Lyon 
had  not  found  this  out.  He  was  like  the  hearties  who  had 
sailed  the  Mediterranean  in  the  good  old  times  when  Jerusa- 
lem was  the  centre  of  the  world,  and  its  outer  edge  was  the  sky 
line  beyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules.  So  long  as  that  was  the 
radius  of  their  world,  the  theory  was  good  enough  for  them, 
and  they  wasted  no  time  prying  underneath  it.  Simply  be- 
cause he  had  never  had  the  conceit  up  for  examination,  but 
had  given  it  storage  room  along  with  other  souvenirs  of  his 
college  days,  Lyon  was  as  unafraid  as  the  hosts  appealing  to 
Baal,  when  he  called  up,  as  he  supposed,  a  fact  which  would 
put  an  end  to  this  whole  trifling  with  the  unchangeable : — 

"How  would  it  do,  Mr.  Graham,"  he  demanded,  in  a  man- 
ner which  was  meant  and  understood  as  mandatory,  in  spite 
of  its  studied  politeness,  "to  consider  some  of  the  things  that 
we  all  know  are  here  to  stay,  instead  of  harping  any  longer  on 
aspects  of  the  case  which  you  claim  to  regard  as  debatable? 
For  instance,  we  might  progress  if  we  started  with  the  fact 
that  nothing  can  rob  the  capitalist  of  the  merit  of  his  ab- 
staining from  consumption  of  his  wealth,  or  of  his  title  to  the 
reward  due  for  reserving  the  wealth  as  capital." 

"Last  stowaway  aboard!  Cast  off  your  stern  line!"  jeered 
Graham  with  a  burst  of  glee  that  was  schoolboyish  on  the  sur- 
face, but  sufficiently  drastic  in  effect.  "Perhaps  you  haven't 
been  noticing  how  I  was  rattling  the  pennies  in  my  pocket 
while  I  was  looking  for  that  perennial  'pity-the-poor-blind- 
man'  to  turn  up?  'Productivity'  and  'Abstinence!'  The 
Angel  Twins  of  Capitalism !  Whose  soul  is  so  congealed  as 
not  to  be  stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  privations  of  Avery  stock- 
holders, eating  their  frugal  bread  without  butter,  and  their 
potatoes  without  salt,  so  as  to  have  the  means  of  taking  up 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


their  ground-floor  apportionment  of  the  next  'good  thing!' 
If  it  would  not  make  a  too  appalling  exhibit,  we  might  reckon 
in  the  game  suppers  they  pass  every  now  and  then,  when  they 
can't  Turkish-bathe  away  in  time  the  effects  of  the  one  before. 
It  is  enough  to  draw  scalding  tears  from  the  painted  eyes  of 
the  wooden  Indians  in  all  the  back  counties !"  x'Vnd  Graham 
raised  a  cheer  that  must  have  made  the  people  outside  won- 
der; as  no  drinks  had  been  ordered. 

"Mr.  Lyon,"  moderated  Graham,  but  with  no  less  accusa- 
tive sarcasm  in  his  inflections,  "that  'abstinence'  gag  is  the 
most  give-away  specimen  in  the  entire  collection  of  capitalistic 
antiquities.  It  shows  up  j^our  whole  speculation  of  making 
wheelbarrow  propositions  cover  aeroplane  processes.  When  it 
was  a  question  between  wearing  the  old  shoes  another  season, 
and  getting  a  new  saw  to  use  in  the  shop ;  or  between  short  ra- 
tions through  the  Winter  and  seed  to  plant  in  the  Spring,  ab- 
stinence meant  something  large  in  the  industrial  process.  But 
do  you  want  me  to  believe  that,  since  you  stopped  swallow- 
ing things  as  they  were  told,  you  are  still  taken  in  by  the  sanc- 
timonious pretensions  of  'abstinence'  as  a  metaphysic  of  mod- 
ern distribution?  Couldn't  you  just  as  easily  believe  that 
Atlas  carries  the  world  on  his  shoulders,  as  that  'abstinence,' 
in  the  sense  of  self-denial,  cuts  any  considerable  figiu*e  in  the 
case  of  large  capital  and  modern  capitalists?  You  know  as 
well  as  I  do  that  there  would  be  no  capitalistic  i)roblem  if  the 
only  capital  concerned  were  the  kind  that  exists  by  grace  of 
the  self-sacrifice  of  its  present  holders.  When  you  assume  the 
contrary,  your  special  pleading  for  capitalism  makes  a  good 
pair  with  the  Henry  George  argument  that,  because  savages 
get  their  food  without  capital,  therefore  capital  is  not  neces- 
sary for  civilization.  The  capital  that  makes  the  problem.s  is 
not  the  tool  capital  that  its  owners  deny  themselves  necessities 
and  luxuries  to  get;  it  is  the  finance-capital  that  its  owners 
couldn't  consume  if  they  would — the  surplus  above  all  possible 
capacity  of  its  individual  possessors  to  use  in  any  way  excei)t 
to  procure  them  unwarranted  power  over  their  fellow  men. 
Crediting  anything  to  such  capital  on  the  score  of  abstinence 
is  as  far-fetched  as  defending  winnings  in  a  poker  game  and 
with  marked  cards  at  that,  on  the  ground  that  they  were 
earned  by  abstinence  from  work.  If  we  were  talking  about 
constructive  financiering,  that  hunts  out  unworked  resources, 
and  then  gets  together  the  capital  necessary  to  develop  them,  I 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


iiiight  go  as  liigli  as  you  would  in  appraising  the  wage-earning 
value  of  that  service.  But  for  God's  sake  kick  that  canting 
hypocrite  'Abstinence'  out  of  decent  company,  and  give  things 
their  honest  names !  The  place  to  discover  the  self-contradic- 
tion of  capitalism  is  with  those  capitalists  who  have  to  lie 
awake  nights  to  think  out  ways  of  anchoring  their  capital  so 
it  won't  drift  away  with  the  next  tide.  Stretching  your  meta- 
physic  to  cover  them  is  like  calling  it  'abstinence'  when  the 
boy  hanging  around  the  rear  of  the  grocery  doesn't  walk  away 
with  a  hogshead  of  mola.sses  in  his  stomach !" 

In  the  evolution  of  social  species,  the  variety  next  beyond 
the  inquirer  by  curious  argumentation  is  the  inquirer  by  in- 
ventive experiment.  If  Lyon's  attention  had  been  trained  in- 
ward instead  of  outward  during  Graham's  latest  iconoclasm, 
he  might  have  observed  beginnings  of  revaluations  which,  if 
let  alone,  could  have  no  other  outcome  than  development  of 
the  more  advanced  type.  Not  that  Graliam  had  said  any- 
thing new.  Although  in  recent  years  Lyon  had  given  hardly 
more  thought  to  this  second  link  in  the  chain  of  Graham's 
reasoning  than  to  the  one  before ;  and  although  he  could  not 
have  told  where  he  had  come  across  similar  opinions;  there 
was,  on  the  one  hand,  the  staleness  about  them  of  lessons 
learned  but  not  assimilated,  then  forgotten  and  recalled.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  personal  force  and  assurance  that  Graham 
put  into  his  destructive  criticism  was  irrefutable.  If  it  did 
not  carry  conviction,  it  destroyed  the  self-evidence  of  the  pre- 
vious ba.sis  of  belief. 

Lyon  could  not  remember  whether  he  had  heard  his  father's 
comparison  of  business  principles  with  the  laws  of  climate, 
before  it  w^as  so  unsuccessfully  tried  on  Hester.  He  would 
have  said,  however,  that  the  parallel  was  fairly  close.  All 
the  schemes  or  longings  for  social  readjustment  which  he  had 
ever  thought  worth  notice,  even  as  academic  propositions, 
were  to  his  mind  as  though  they  took  the  facts  of  climate  for 
granted,  but  deliberately  undertook  the  task  of  artificially 
controlling  climate.  The  possibility  had  never  before  pre- 
sented itself  to  his  imagination  that  the  business  system  might 
be  more  like  a  conservatory  than  like  climate.  Contact  with 
a  man  who  had  been  a  brilliant  success  in  business  on  a  large 
scale,  who  nevertheless  believed  that  the  principles  on  which 
the  conservatory  had  been  run  w^ere  not  only  ridiculous  but 

356 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     FALLACY     OF     DISTRIBUTION 


contemptible,  supplied  a  new  object-glass  which  rearranged 
his  whole  field  of  vision. 

Since  he  was  facing  the  argument,  rather  than  his  own 
subjective  reactions,  Lyon  had  no  thoughts  for  effects  upon 
liis  personal  make-up,  but  only  for  the  strategic  value  of  Gra- 
ham's moves.  He  had  never  allowed  himself  the  false  security 
of  underrating  an  opponent's  strength.  He  was  too  judicial 
to  coddle  himself  with  pretense  that  his  position  had  improved 
during  the  engagement.  In  stark  truth,  he  felt  as  though  he 
had  been  guilty,  as  he  never  had  been  in  reality,  of 
going  into  court  with  a  superficially  prepared  case,  and  had 
found  himself  confronted  by  rules  of  law  which  he  had  never 
considered. 

If  Lyon  had  followed  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  he  would 
have  announced  himself  on  the  spot  a  volunteer  to  test  Gra- 
ham's allegations,  and  to  devise  remedies  for  the  conditions, 
if  the  charges  were  sustained.  But  he  was  a  part  of  the  system. 
He  was  retained  in  its  interest.  It  was  his  business  to  repre- 
sent its  claims.  He  had  not  even  Kissinger's  freedom  to  re- 
sign his  position.  Filial  duty  held  him  tighter  than  profes- 
sional obligations.  The  only  immediate  recourse  was  stout 
assertion  of  'not  proven,'  with  reserve  purpose  of  going  into 
Graham's  attack  at  once  in  detail,  to  discover  whether  any- 
thing in  his  theory  really  demanded  practical  recognition. 


357 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


I 


THE    SUPERSTITION    OF    PROPERTY 

XXII 

THE   SUPERSTITION   OF   PROPERTY 

"Everything  fair  and  reasonable  in  property  would  be 
affirmed  and  strengthened  if  it  were  readjusted  on  the 
service  basis." 


GRAHAM  had  no  means  of  choosing  between  the  possible 
explanations  of  Lyon's  failure  to  strike  back.  It  might 
be  a  confession.  It  might  be  sheer  inability  to  see  things  ex- 
cept through  the  capitalistic  prejudice.  It  might  be  retreat 
into  unthinking  defiance.  With  nothing  to  go  by  in  decid- 
ing what  state  of  mind  to  infer,  the  wisest  course  was  return 
to  the  pure  logic  of  the  case.  There  was  no  doubt  that  Lyon's 
attention  was  still  pacing  its  beat ;  and  Graham  took  the  chance 
of  forcing  his  position  by  ma.ssing  his  attack  on  the  centre. 

After  the  silence  had  lasted  long  enough  to  afford  each 
party  a  fairly  clear  retrospect  of  the  ground  covered  by  the 
discussion,  and  for  each  to  cast  up  his  account  of  the  other's 
offensive  and  defensive  strength,  as  revealed  to  the  kind  of 
muscular  sense  called  into  action  by  the  encounter,  Graham 
started  again  in  a  tone  which  retained  no  trace  of  his  previous 
heat. 

''One  of  the  things  that  men  of  your  type  are  never  able  to 
shut  out  of  their  minds,  Mr.  Lyon,  when  any  one  questions 
the  metaphysics  of  our  economic  system,  is  the  ghost  of  the 
bill  which  the  questioner  is  supposed  to  be  carrying  around 
in  his  pocket,  ready  for  railroading  through  the  legislature 
the  minute  his  clique  gets  the  balance  of  power,  and  tooted  as 
an  instantaneous  cure  for  everything  which  the  questioner 
calls  bad.  You  can't  or  you  won't  separate  the  question  of 
principle  from  the  problems  of  policy.  When  I  say  that  the 
property  basis  of  economic  distribution  is  a  burlesque  of  jus- 
tice, and  that  the  only  sure  approach  to  distributive  justice 
will  have  to  be  on  a  service  basis,  you  refuse  to  give  the  propo- 
sition a  hearing,  because  you  suppose  I  have  a  scheme  up  my 
sleeve  to  dispossess  property  holders  and  distribute  the  loot 
to  the  public  per  capita.  Or  rather,  you  don't  suppose  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  but  you  dodge  the  responsibility  of  run- 
ning down  a  fundamental  proposition,  by  pretending  that 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


every  one  wlio  sees  through  your  mythological  metaphysics 
is  in  the  crazy  class. 

"If  we  should  compare  notes  all  along  the  line,  I  fancy  it 
would  turn  out  that  I  have  quite  as  radical  contempt  as  you 
have  for  scoldings  at  things  that  serve  a  necessary  purpose  in 
the  course  of  evolution,  and  are  bad  only  when  they  are  set 
up  as  finalities  to  block  further  evolution.  I  don't  want  the 
savings  banks  to  sto])  paying  interest — partly  because  their 
deposits  come  about  as  near  as  anything  in  our  day  to  the 
fabulous  concei-)tion  of  capital  that  deserves  a  reward  for  its 
own  sake — and  I  don't  need  to  be  told  that  the  savings  banks 
couldn't  pay  interest  unless  investments  yielded  profits.  Be- 
sides that,  the  savings  banks  do  a  big  service,  on  the  one  hand, 
in  bunching  small  sums  for  use  in  large  enterprises,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  the  interest  on  deposits  provisionally  takes 
the  place  of  the  deferred  payments  which  will  endow  the  old- 
age  of  all  the  industrious,  when  we  have  learned  to  apply  the 
insurance  principle  for  all  it  is  worth.  With  different  de- 
tails, all  legitimate  uses  of  capital,  and  payments  of  dividends, 
are  justified  in  a  way,  and  to  a  certain  limit,  which  I  will  not 
discuss,  by  the  value  of  their  service  in  putting  savings  at 
the  disposal  of  productive  workers,  and  in  proxying  partially 
for  the  old  age  insurance  that  will  provide  for  the  non-pro- 
ductive years  of  all  the  world's  workers  when  we  have  ration- 
ally developed  our  economic  system. 

"While  the  regular  workings  of  solid  business  do  not  con- 
firm the  grotesque  theories  that  have  been  fabricated  to  jus- 
tify them,  they  have  a  much  better  reason  for  existence  in  the 
literal  fact  that  they  are  the  best  approach  we  have  thus  far 
been  able  to  make  to  an  ordering  of  industry  in  accordance 
with  the  actual  values  involved.  This  does  not  remove  the 
other  fact  that  it  is  up  to  us  to  recognize  the  snap-judgments 
incorporated  in  our  capitalistic  institutions,  with  the  intolera- 
ble consequences  that  appear  as  incorporated  capital  increases 
in  amount;  and  to  put  less  mischievous  judgments  in  their 
place. 

"Everything  fair  and  reasonable  in  property  would  be  af- 
firmed and  strengthened  if  it  were  readjusted  on  the  service 
basis.  Everything  obstructive  and  abusive  and  perv^ersive  in 
property  is  protected  and  instigated  by  the  satanic  negation 
of  humanity  in  our  capitalistic  mythology.  Day  and  night, 
and  change  of  seasons,  and  advance  of  ci^dlization  didn't  stop 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


when  we  found  out  that  it  was  the  earth  that  revolved,  not 
the  sun.  We  have  understood  things  better,  and  managed 
ourselves  more  successfully,  since  we  have  reckoned  with  the 
facts  as  they  are,  instead  of  trying  to  fit  ourselves  to  fictions. 
Business  won't  stop,  and  justice  won't  disappear,  and  human 
progress  won't  halt,  when  we  retire  the  sardonic  old  lies  I 
have  been  talking  about — that  capital  produces,  and  finan- 
ciering manipulation  is  abstinence,  and  having  some  wealth 
confers  an  inherent  right  to  more.  I  would  willingly  quit 
fighting  capitalism  for  life  if  I  could  get  the  fundamental 
concession  that  business  theory  shall  henceforth  be  shifted 
over  from  the  property  basis  to  the  service  basis.  I  don't 
pretend  to  see  very  far  ahead  as  to  how  the  accounting  will 
work  out,  and  it  would  be  foolish  to  try.  Coming  generations 
will  have  to  develop  the  details,  just  as  we  are  only  getting 
fairly  settled  down  now  to  the  job  of  finding  out  what  political 
democracy  actually  involves,  although  the  eighteenth  century 
substituted  the  principle  of  government  by  the  people  for  the 
principle  of  government  over  the  people.  The  details  will 
talve  care  of  themselves,  and  T  am  not  so  very  much  con- 
cerned about  the  how  or  the  when  of  them.  They  will  get 
into  shape  as  fast  as  men  are  fit  for  them,  if  we  only  carry 
through  the  fundamental  revolution  from  mystification  into 
matter-of-fact  in  our  conceptions  of  the  primary  economic  re- 
lations. Whether  it  comes  soon  or  late,  the  world  will  be  in 
its  next  great  era  of  human  achievement  the  moment  there 
is  a  working  majority  for  calculating  our  economic  course  ac- 
cording to  the  human  factors  in  the  process,  instead  of  blund- 
ering along  further  in  this  capitalistic  trance. 

"You  think  this  is  an  infinitesimal  issue  to  start  a  strike  on, 
Mr.  Lyon.  I  am  trying  to  show  you,  on  the  contrary,  that  it 
is  an  issue  that  goes  to  the  roots  of  modern  men's  connections 
with  one  another.  When  men  see  the  facts  as  they  are,  they 
are  not  long  in  perceiving  that  the  logic  of  events  is  rapidly 
forcing  choice  between  two  alternatives.  One  or  the  other  is 
inevitable.  We  may  go  on  in  an  endless  series  of  trials  of 
strength  between  economic  classes,  with  decision  of  nothing 
except  survival  of  the  type  that  the  system  makes  strong ;  or 
we  may  appeal  to  elementary  principles  of  the  human  proc- 
ess, and  reorder  the  system  so  that  fitter  types  will  be  the 
strong,  and  will  survive  to  fill  the  world  with  a  better  process. 
This  strike  means  that  a  social  will  which  may  be  only  a  cloud 

363 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


as  big  as  a  man's  hand  on  the  world's  horizon — but  none  of  us 
have  taken  its  measure  yet — has  made  itself  uj)  for  the  forward 
end  of  this  dilemma." 

The  two  men  were  leaning  so  far  over  the  little  table  be- 
tween them  that  their  faces  nearly  met.  They  were  looking 
each  other  fixedly  in  the  eye,  and  there  was  no  more  energy  in 
Graham's  assault  than  in  Lyon's  repellant  resistence. 

Perhaps  it  was  well  that  Graham  did  not  know  how  far 
Lyon  had  convinced  himself  before  the  argument  began.  He 
might  have  scattered  his  fire  if  he  had  suspected  how  many 
of  the  things  he  was  saying  aft'ected  Lyon  like  graphophon- 
ings  of  mind  readings  from  his  own  off-duty  reflections.  Li 
fact,  Lyon  had  to  keep  his  will  power  at  high  pressure  to  hold 
the  business  side  of  the  interview  foremost.  By  vigilant  use 
of  force,  he  centered  his  interest  on  the  strike  issues  trembling 
in  the  balance,  and  possibly  to  be  settled  one  way  or  the  other 
by  some  slight  turn  of  the  talk.  The  prospect  of  arriving  at 
anything  practical,  however,  seemed  so  remote  that  it  was 
hard  to  resist  the  allurements  of  the  argument  as  a  purely 
sjieculative  exercise.  In  that  light  his  sympathies  would  have 
led  him  so  far  from  his  professional  position  that  Graham 
would  have  been  at  a  loss  to  place  him.  In  fact,  although  it 
was  not  yet  quite  clear  to  Lyon  himself,  his  business  ideals 
Avere  not  so  very  different  from  Graham's.  For  Lyon,  how- 
ever, these  ideals  belonged  in  a  detached  realm  of  the  mind. 
They  had  a  coherence  and  a  desirability  of  their  own  as  ab- 
stractions. He  still  considered  it  visionar\^  to  suppose  that 
working  connections  could  ever  be  established  between  them 
and  actual  affairs. 

If  Graham  had  been  able  to  ferret  out  so  much,  it  would 
probably  have  decoyed  him  into  the  tactical  mistake  of  mov- 
ing directly  on  Lyon's  will,  instead  of  continuing  preliminary 
operations  on  his  ideas.  His  confinement  to  surface  indica- 
tions for  cluas  to  Lyon's  state  of  mind  imposed  persistence 
along  the  line  of  logical  and  psychological  rudiments;  while 
a  little  more  knowledge  would  have  stimulated  efforts  which 
would  have  been  strategically  far  less  effective. 

'Must  one  more  fling  at  this  distribution  matter,"  Graham 
indexed,  with  a  breezy  sort  of  suggestiveness  that  he  had  so 
far  merely  been  getting  bothersome  trifles  out  of  the  way, 
"and  then  I'll  come  to  something  a  little  nearer  home. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


"I  don't  want  to  reopen  the  productivity  question,  but  of 
course  it  has  to  be  the  background  of  our  ideas  about  distri- 
bution. And  after  what  I  have  said,  it  would  be  dishonest  to 
accuse  nie  of  promoting  a  scheme  tliat  would  put  one  man's 
dues  into  other  men's  pockets.  I  am  trying  to  show  you  that 
we  have  such  a  scheme  in  operation  now.  It  is  backed  by 
solemn  codes  of  owl-eyed  law  and  i)hilosophy.  I  am  after  a 
scheme  that  will  get  each  man's  dues  into  his  own  pocket, 
and  that  daylight  law  and  philosophy  can  stand  for.  In  the 
system  of  distribution  that  the  realities  of  life  will  finally 
sanction,  everybody  that  contributes  to  the  values  of  life  will 
get  a  share,  and  for  the  good  and  sufficient  reason  that  he 
contributes  to  those  values.  If  any  one  gets  a  share  who  does 
not  so  contribute,  it  will  be  either  because  the  social  scheme 
has  broken  down  enough,  at  the  point  where  he  occurs,  to  be 
defenseless  against  his  brand  of  thieving,  or  because  he  comes 
in  on  some  minor  qualifying  clause  that  needn't  embarrass 
the  main  argument.  You  have  no  fear  coming  that  any- 
body, from  the  bank  president  and  the  captain  of  industry 
down  to  the  scrub  woman,  will  be  thrown  out  of  any  job  that 
really  contributes  to  the  values  of  life,  or  will  lose  the  pay  that 
belongs  with  the  job.  But  our  present  theory  of  distribution 
is  an  unmixable  fluid,  made  up  of  unequal  and  variable  parts 
of  the  oil  of  wages  and  the  water  of  bonuses.  The  process  of 
squeezing  out  the  water  that  is  going  on  in  the  world  of  practi- 
cal finance,  has  also  got  to  go  on  in  the  theories  behind  the 
finance.  When  the  process  is  complete,  nobody  that  helps  the 
world  along  will  be  short  of  his  equity  in  the  process.  Only 
the  polite  hangei-s-on  will  find  that  they've  either  got  to  starve 
or  go  to  work. 

"To  change  the  figure,  our  present  scheme  of  distribution 
is  trying  to  support  itself  with  one  foot  on  the  ground  and  the 
other  in  the  clouds.  When  it  gets  planted  with  both  feet 
where  sole  leather  can  get  a  purchase,  the  procession  will  be 
less  picturesque,  but  it  will  be  an  ablerbodied  column,  with  a 
much  reduced  percentage  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  hospital 
service  and  the  missing  list. 

"Libraries  have  been  written  in  the  forlorn  hope  of  work- 
ing off  on  the  rank  and  file  of  us  any  old  thing  except  unadul- 
terated truth  about  distribution.  The  facts  always  get  there 
in  the  end.  I  can't  silence  all  the  libraries  in  this  skirmish. 
I  can  only  show  you  the  location  of  my  main  batteries.    The 

365 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


key  to  this  iKirticular  i>art  of  the  situation  is  that  property  is 
privilege.  Sounds  like  diluted  Proudhon,  doesn't  it?  'Twould 
save  lots  of  trouble  if  I  could  leave  you  the  satisfaction  of 
damning  it  with  that  label ;  but  truth  compels  me  to  bar  such 
short  cuts  by  adding  that  property  is  one  of  the  privileges  that 
make  life  worth  living.  "Maintain  property'  is  writ  large  be- 
tween the  lines  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  and  it  is  not  much 
less  rudimentary  than  the  best  of  them. 

''On  the  other  hand,  property  is  a  sort  of  privilege  that  can 
be  saved  from  abuse  only  when  it  is  controlled  by  infallible 
moral  perceptions;  and  they  are  the  factors  in  the  case  that 
the  game  keepers  of  property  have  been  sedulously  stirpicul- 
turing  out  of  our  intellects  for  more  than  a  hundred  years. 

''If  I  had  a  dollar,  and  I  lived  in  a  society  that  did  not  main- 
tain property,  instead  of  having  my  hands  free  to  work  for 
another  dollar,  it  might  cost  more  strength  and  worry  to  keep 
the  first  one  than  it  took  to  get  it.  Property  is  the  privilege 
of  falling  back  on  our  neighbors'  help  to  defend  us  in  pos- 
session of  what  rightfully  belongs  to  us.  When  all  of  us  see 
that  the  only  way  to  keep  all  of  our  hands  untied  for  prof- 
itable work  is  to  stand  by  one  another  in  guarding  what  our 
work  has  gained,  each  of  us  has  the  benefit  of  a  privilege  that 
is  equivalent  to  the  work  of  a  big  machine  added  to  our  feeble 
labor  power.  "When  my  neighbors  pledge  themselves  to  guard 
my  dollar,  they  are  my  servants,  and  I  may  put  in  my  whole 
strength  getting  another  dollar,  or  I  may  do  what  I  please 
till  I  need  my  dollar. 

"But  capitalism  has  actually  made  us  believe  that,  instead 
of  owing  my  neighbors  something  for  their  protectorate  over 
my  dollar,  they  are  bound  to  pay  me  something  for  allowing 
them  to  act  as  my  private  watchmen!  I  would  rather  lounge 
in  the  shade  than  hoe  corn;  so  I  turn  over  the  hoe,  that  I 
have  bought  with  my  dollar,  to  my  neighbor  Jones.  All  my 
neighbors  go  on  his  bond  as  surety  for  the  hoe,  and  he  be- 
comes the  agent  of  my  neighbors  in  guarding  the  hoe.  When 
the  season  is  over,  if  he  doesn't  do  it  of  his  own  will,  my  neigh- 
bors close  in  on  him  with  their  property  laws  and  make  him 
return  not  only  the  dollar  which  I  put  into  the  hoe,  but  ten 
cents  more  to  compensate  me  for  doing  my  work.  In  other 
w^ords,  our  capitalistic  system  is  the  great  original  Tom  Saw- 
yer getting  his  fence  w^hitewashed !" 

366 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


Lyon  was  reminded  of  Hester's  .similar  way  of  putting  it 
the  previous  Sunday,  and  he  wondered  whether  she  had  been 
working  on  a  chie  from  Graham.  This  seemed  to  him,  how- 
ever, a  far  more  extravagant  caricature  of  the  real  transaction, 
than  hers;  but  he  merely  interrupted  dryly,  ''While  you  were 
about  it,  Mr.  Graham,  couldn't  you  also  have  barred  the  short 
cut  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous?" 

Graham  reacted  instinctively.  He  dramatically  advanced 
to  the  higher  emphasis  of  reducing  the  physical  elements  of 
speech  to  almost  inaudible  suggestion. 

"The  span  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous  in  the  case, 
Mr.  Lyon,  is  precisely  the  one  dimension  of  the  chasm  that 
capitalism  has  channeled  in  modern  society.  This  strike  is  a 
preliminary  survey  for  the  engineering  feat  of  closing  the 
crevasse.  The  only  desperate  element  in  the  situation  is  the 
fatuity  of  capitalism  in  reversing  the  identities  of  the  ridicu- 
lous and  the  sublime.  The  most  stupendous  deception  ever 
lodged  in  the  minds  of  men  is  the  uncontrollable  element  in 
capitalism's  dismpting  force.  It  is  the  incredible  hallucina- 
tion that  absentee  ownership  can  entitle  a  man  to  levy  tribute 
on  the  fellowman  who  sta^^s  by  the  stuff  and  makes  it  useful  for 
human  purposes.  The  reality  of  this  moral  upsetting  has  been 
hid  from  the  wise  and  prudent  but  it  is  dawning  on  babes. 
Capitalism  and  its  intellectual  panders  refuse  to  see  it;  but 
all  that  is  human  in  men  is  beginning  to  feel  it;  and  install- 
ing the  truth  in  place  of  this  cynical  perversion  is  going  to  be 
the  work  of  the  next  great  era." 

The  three  men  were  equally  affected  by  this  compression  of 
a  crisis  into  a  breath.  The  words  had  been  put  into  Gra- 
ham's mouth,  and  another  age  might  have  told  the  story  as 
a  speaking  of  the  supernatural.  In  the  form  dictated  by  the 
circumstances,  the  perception  wdiich  had  been  guiding  him 
for  years  was  almost  as  revealing  to  Graham  as  to  Lyon  and 
Halleck.  The  judgment  of  neither  was  at  once  changed  by 
it.  On  the  contrary,  its  first  effect  on  each  was  to  confirm 
him  in  the  position  he  was  trying  to  maintain.  Shai'pness  of 
outline,  if  not  depth  of  insight,  had  been  added  to  the  view  of 
each.  The  time  needed  for  the  back-spring  from  the  strain 
of  the  moment  was  filled  with  readjustment  of  vision  to  the 
altered  outlook. 

When  Graham  spoke  again,  it  was  in  the  emotionless  and 
decisive  tone  of  ordinary  ofRce  affairs.     "Our  Avhole  wise- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


acrely  last-century  literature  on  the  calculus  of  capitalistic  in- 
comes is  as  sophistical  from  the  start  a.s  if  it  had  been  dis- 
quisitions to  prove  the  moral  harmonies  of  winnings  from 
loaded  dice.  Our  business  routine  conceals  this  vitiating  ele- 
ment in  our  economic  system  in  the  mass  of  details  that  are 
entirely  rational.  When  I  pay  six  cents  for  the  dollar  I  bor- 
row at  the  cashier's  window,  the  service  the  bank  does  me  is 
in  so  many  ways  like  the  service  of  the  grocer  who  sells  me  a 
dollar's  worth  of  sugar,  that  it  would  be  wanting  something 
for  nothing  if  I  quarreled  with  paying  a  profit  to  either.  If 
we  were  all  attending  strictly  to  fair  exchange  of  services  with 
our  fellow  men,  and  had  no  ways  of  collecting  for  services 
not  rendered,  there  would  be  as  little  to  go  on  in  fighting  the 
profits  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  The  six  cents  Avhich  I 
pay  to  the  banker  under  the  name  'interest,'  total  up  mostly 
from  items  that  would  have  to  be  covered  in  any  solvent  sys- 
tem of  doing  business  that  could  ever  be  invented.  First  is 
the  fair  wage  to  the  banker  for  his  labor.  Then  there  are  all 
the  necessary  expenses  of  doing  the  business  of  keeping  money 
in  stock  for  the  use  of  workers  who  haven't  it  in  stock.  Then, 
besides  other  items,  there  is  insurance  on  the  risk  the  banker 
takes  of  not  getting  his  money  back,  in  spite  of  the  big  secur- 
ity system  which  business  and  law  maintain.  I  am  quite  will- 
ing to  admit  that  the  six  cents  I  pay  for  a  particular  dollar 
may  be  no  more  than  enough  to  cover  all  these  items  in  that 
transaction.  AVhat  I  am  pointing  out  is  that  our  capitalistic 
theory  permits  and  encourages  the  loading  of  that  interest 
charge  with  an  unearned  bonus  to  the  owner  of  the  money, 
simply  and  solely  because  he  is  the  owner.  More  than  this, 
the  ways  of  collecting  this  charge,  and  others  that  look  like 
it  but  are  really  raised  counterfeits  of  it,  are  so  many  and  so 
complicated,  that  the  banker's  fair  compensation  may  be 
exceeded  over  and  over  again,  by  levies  which  propertj^  is  able 
to  make  on  production,  on  account  of  the  fictitious  merits 
which  the  capitalistic  metaphysics  credits  to  capital.  Wage 
and  cost  of  the  service  are  the  only  proper  fixed  charges  for 
economic  goods,  whether  supplied  by  landlord,  capitalist, 
manager  or  laborer.  Capitalistic  inflation  of  the  rent,  inter- 
est, profit,  and  salarv'-  elements  of  distribution,  in  excess  of 
the  price  necessary  to  cover  these  charges,  is  the  only  an- 
archism which  modern  society  has  seriously  to  fear.  There 
is  no  compensating  social  function  to  which  this  graft  cor- 
ses 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


responds.  Capitalism  standing  by  Have  in  forcing  hold-up 
money  from  Have-not,  is  the  most  misanthropic  enemy  left 
in  the  path  of  socialization." 

In  spite  of  the  extensions  which  the  talk  was  giving  to  his 
abstract  theory,  the  unavailable  quality  of  these  refinements 
loomed  up  to  Lyon  at  this  moment  more  than  ever.  He  was 
not  disingenuous,  but  merely  practical,  when  he  again  ap- 
pealed from  speculation  to  common  sense  in  the  unshaken  ulti- 
matum:— "Well  now,  Mr.  Graham,  bring  this  thing  right 
down  to  application.  Honestly,  supposing  every  capitalist  in 
the  world  should  paste  your  proposition  in  his  hat,  and  on  his 
office  door,  tomorrow  morning.  What  earthly  chance  is  there 
that  swapping  one  metaphysic  for  another  could  make  the 
slightest  impression  on  the  ways  in  which  we've  always  got 
to  do  business?" 

"That  is  the  very  least  of  my  troubles,"  was  Graham's  quick 
rejoinder;  and  something  in  his  manner  forbade  suspicion 
that  he  was  either  disregarding  facts  or  falsifying  their  indi- 
cations. The  curl  of  his  lip  showed  that  he  had  discounted 
Lyon's  sort  of  incredulity ;  but  his  words  showed  plainer  that 
he  was  not  deluding  himself  about  the  lapse  of  time  to  be 
reckoned  with  before  dividends  could  be  expected  from  in- 
vestments in  moral  principle.  "So  far  as  I  know,  it  has  been 
rather  the  rule  than  the  exception  for  the  social  principles 
that  we  now  regard  as  settled  to  drag  out  a  period  that  looked 
like  still-birth,  after  the  date  which  History  selects  as  mark- 
ing their  accession.  The  case  of  English  constitutionalism  is 
the  whole  thing  in  a  nutshell.  In  outward  appearance  things 
went  on  in  pretty  much  the  same  old  way  for  two  or  three 
hundred  years  after  Runnymede;  yet  the  historians  tell  us 
that  Magna  Charta  marks  the  great  divide  between  the  regime 
of  kings  over  the  law  and  kings  under  the  law.  To  the  dis- 
passionate observer  at  our  distance  nothing  worth  getting 
very  excited  about,  one  way  or  the  other,  seems  to  be  involved 
in  letting  the  word  'Autocrat'  stand  in  the  Russian  constitu- 
tion or  in  running  a  pen  through  it.  But  the  Douma  knows, 
and  the  Czar  knows,  and  the  Czarocrats  know  that  a  constitu- 
tion with  the  word  'Autocrat'  left  out  would  be  the  Magna 
Charta  of  Russian  liberties.  Neither  the  unsocial  spirit  nor 
the  social  machinery  of  capitalism  would  disappear  if  we 
should  serve  notice  tomorrow  that  capital's  term  of  office  had 
expired,  and  that  human  interests  would  henceforth  admin- 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


ister  economic  and  ])oli(i('al  affairs.  Suppose  nobody  in  our 
(lay  ca.^liod  in  anything  on  the  readjustment.  Suppose  peo- 
|)le  would  have  to  wait  for  returns  as  long  as  they  did  after 
.^hlgna  Charta  or  the  Cross.  Do  you  want  seriously  to  set  up 
the  contention,  Mr.  Lyon,  that  it  is  not  worth  bothering  about 
whether  a  subvei-sive  principle  or  its  opposite  sets  the  pace  for 
the  society  we  belong  to?" 

The  prospects  along  this  line  did  not  flatter  Lyon,  and  he 
shifted  to  another  question.  "Has  one  of  these  great  moral 
principles  ever  been  known  to  ride  into  power  on  the  back 
of  such  attenuated  esoteric  abstractions  as  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing?" 

''Don't  deceive  yourself  on  that  score  either,  Mr.  Lyon," 
countered  Graham  instantly.  "The  minut&s  contain  no  rec- 
ord of  anything  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth  faster  or  far- 
ther since  the  world  began,  than  knowledge  of  the  miswork- 
ings  of  capitalism  among  the  plain  people.  They  don't  have 
to  twist  their  minds  around  theorists'  ways  of  telling  it.  They 
know  the  facts;  and  their  instincts  are  growing  truer  every 
day  about  the  sort  of  leadership  that  fits  the  facts.  It  isn't  a 
question  any  longer  whether  the  majority  can  be  roused 
against  capitalism.  The  question  is  how  to  keep  them  from 
being  too  much  aroused,  and  by  the  wrong  people.  The 
straight  line  has  never  been  the  path  of  society  on  any  long 
route,  and  it  wouldn't  pay  to  waste  regrets  over  the  unlikeli- 
hood of  an  exception  in  progress  from  capitalism  to  hu- 
manism. The  costs  of  all  kinds  will  be  kept  down  though, 
and  the  readjustment  will  get  into  running  order  with  least 
loss  of  time,  the  sooner  men  whom  capitalism  has  trained  to 
manage  large  affairs  sign  up  with  the  policy  of  the  future  and 
give  it  their  loyal  service. 

"But  before  I  get  to  that,"  outlined  Graham,  "I  have  one 
more  specification  in  the  case  against  capitalism.  It  is  con- 
nected in  a  way  with  the  two  chief  counts  that  I  have  argued, 
but  it  goes  on  its  own  merits,  and  does  not  stand  or  fall  with 
the  others.  In  a  word,  a  programme  of  economic  distribu- 
tion in  which  capitalistic  interests  decide  contested  claims  be- 
tween themselves  and  service  interests,  may  be  tolerated  as  a 
transition  expedient.  As  a  principle  and  a  system  it  is 
damnable. 

"The  w^orld's  wage-earners  are  today  in  the  situation  a 
farmer  would  be  in  if  a  manufacturer  of  farm  implements 

370 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  PROPERTY 


had  the  legal  right  to  decide  how  much  of  the  annual  crop 
should  be  invested  in  his  goods.  The  interest  of  the  farmer 
is  to  invest  his  surplus  so  as  to  do  the  most  for  the  comfort 
and  happiness  of  his  family.  The  interest  of  the  manufac- 
turer is  to  get  as  much  as  possible  of  the  crop  as  dividends  on 
his  capital.  If  the  farmer  is  free  to  act  for  his  own  interests, 
he  may  make  foolish  investments,  but  in  the  end  he  will 
probably  look  out  for  his  family  better  than  he  would  if  the 
manufacturer  were  free  to  make  him  turn  his  whole  surplus 
into  machinery,  regardless  of  the  comfort  of  his  family.  The 
advantage  of  capital  in  the  capitalistic  system  tends  to  become 
a  strangle-hold  of  the  something-for-nothing  parties  in  dis- 
tribution, upon  all  the  other  claimants  to  a  share  in  the  out- 
put." 


371 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   DOVE   OF   PEACE 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


XXIII 

THE   DOVE   OF   PEACE 

"Each  in  his  way  was  suffering  for  peace.  Neither  could 
quite  believe  that  the  apparently  unattainable  was  within 
such  easy  grasp.  Each  feared  to  trust  his  own  senses 
that  he  was  not  being  played  upon  by  some  spiteful 
illusion." 

IN  spite  of  his  previous  qualifications,  Graham  seemed  to 
have  exposed  a  weakness  at  last,  and  Lyon  was  on  him  like 
a  ferret : — "Do  you  mean  that  the  men  who  hustle  around  and 
find  new  places  to  use  capital,  and  make  plans  so  that  the  in- 
vestment will  be  secure,  and  give  the  people  with  a  hundred 
dollars  apiece  a  chance  to  put  their  money  where  it  will  be 
both  safe  and  profitable,  and  carry  on  the  business  so  that  it 
will  yield  returns — do  you  mean  to  say  that  such  men  as  that 
deserve  nothing  for  their  work?" 

"That  is  precisely  the  reverse  of  what  I  mean  to  say,  and 
already  have  said,"  assured  Graham ;  and  although  he  could 
not  see  how  Lyon  found  any  such  implication  in  his  latest 
remark,  he  was  glad  to  be  called  on  for  the  repetition.  "In 
the  freest  and  justest  society  I  can  imagine,  there  would  be  a 
constant  demand,  with  good  pay,  for  just  that  type  of  men. 
More  than  that,  they  would  have  a  fair  chance  to  bargain 
with  the  promoter,  so  that  his  work  would  not  get  more  than 
its  fair  wage  at  their  expense.  But  one  of  the  things  to  be  pro- 
vided for,  before  financier  or  organizer  is  settled  in  his  place, 
must  be  that  all  their  fellow  workers  shall  collect  the  full 
worth  of  their  work ;  so  that  they,  and  not  somebody  else,  shall 
have  the  decision  whether  surplus  shall  be  capitalized  at  all, 
or  consumed  in  raising  their  standard  of  life ;  and  if  it  is  to 
be  capitalized,  the  producers  of  it  must  be  consulted  about  in- 
vestments to  be  made  with  their  own  surplus.  Every  man  that 
joins  in  making  nature  productive,  or  people  happy,  whether 
he  hoes  cotton,  or  assembles  capital  or  composes  music,  de- 
serves his  pay  for  his  work.  But  that  is  all  wage.  It  isn't  in- 
terest nor  profits  in  the  capitalistic  sense.  And  I  am  not  pre- 
tending to  lay  down  a  rule  about  the  scale  of  wages,  as  be- 
tween the  man  with  the  hoe  and  the  man  with  the  hoard.    I 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DOVE     OF    PEACE 


am  denouncing  a  system  of  book-keeping  that  credits  to  in- 
come what  belongs  to  expense.  As  to  a  scale  of  incomes,  I 
would  venture  the  guess  that  from  a  tliousand  dollars  a  year 
up  to  the  salary  of  the  Pr&sident  of  the  United  States  would 
fairly  represent  the  range  between  the  service  value  of  the 
man  that  might  be  taken  as  the  labor  unit,  and  that  of  the 
most  efficient  man  in  the  process. 

''But  the  main  point  is,  who  shall  put  the  valuation  on  the 
different  kinds  of  work?  Under  our  system,  within  certain 
limits,  of  course,  capital  can  fix  its  own  wage  and  that  of  labor 
too ;  besides  having  the  power  to  distribute  hand-outs  by  the 
million  that  are  not  wage  but  rake-off.  In  a  fairly  rational 
system  all  the  people  who  did  the  work  would  be  represented 
in  deciding  how  the  product  should  be  distributed." 

"That  means,"  investigated  Lyon,  "you  would  give  every- 
bodv  a  chance  to  vote  himself  a  share  of  the  capital  of  the 
world?" 

"In  effect,  yes."  promptly  assented  Graham. 

"In  other  words,  you  would  cure  what  you  call  'capitalism' 
by  inoculating  everv^body  with  the  disease?" 

"If  the  world  couldn't  produce  more  than  two  or  three 
drops  of  alcohol  per  capita''  Graham  conceded  cheerfully,  "I 
suppose  its  pro  rata  consumption  as  flavoring  extract  might 
abolish  alcoholism !  But  seriously,  you  can't  afford  to  throw 
dust  in  the  air  by  jumbling  the  distinction  I've  been  making 
all  along  between  capital  and  capitalism.  You  can't  make  it 
too  strong  for  me  that  civilized  men  need  capital  as  much  as 
they  need  land.  Capital  in  itself,  and  humanly  used,  is  an 
unmixed  good.  Capitalism  is  an  inhuman  use  of  capital. 
Capitalism  has  turned  capital  into  a  gigantic  beast  of  prey 
that  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on ;  while  the  actual  workers  have 
to  go  without  the  food  it  consumes." 

In  spite  of  his  interest  in  the  speculative  side  of  the  argu- 
ment, Lyon's  impatience  was  again  asserting  itself.  He  was 
summing  up  the  lack  of  practical  proposals  in  Graham's  talk, 
as  confirmation  of  the  Company's  ultimatum  that  theorias  are 
not  to  be  taken  seriously  till  a  practicable  way  of  applying 
them  is  invented.  He  thought  it  was  time  to  bring  up  his  an- 
nounced reliance  for  defense.  "But  you  have  had  a  free 
hand  all  the  evening,  Mr.  Graham,  to  conduct  the  case  in  your 
own  way,  and  you  haven't  come  down  near  enough  for  your 
drag  ropes  to  touch  the  earth  with  anything  that  had  the  re- 

376 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


motest  resemblance  to  a  practical  proposition.  Don't  yon 
know  that  you  haven't  come  within  striking  distance  of  my 
original  position  that  your  whole  case  is  air-castles  and  not 
business?" 

Quite  as  disconcerting  to  Lyon  as  the  substance  of  Gra- 
ham's argument,  was  just  the  faintest  trace  of  conscious  and 
playful  superiority  in  his  way  of  handling  the  opposition. 
Instead  of  appearing  surprised  or  baffled,  he  received  every- 
thing which  he  took  as  strictly  candid  on  Lyon's  part  with 
the  patronizing  confidence  of  the  kindly  pedagogue  who  puts 
himself  in  his  pupils'  place,  and  gauges  his  answers  to  the 
liberal  reflection,  "Those  things  puzzled  me  too  at  their  stage 
of  my  education."  Not  even  this  latest  challenge  turned  Gra- 
ham from  his  general  plan,  which  he  had  varied  only  in  de- 
tail.    His  answer,  therefore,  again  seemed  at  first  evasive: — 

"If  I  asked  the  Avery  Company  to  throw  all  its  power-gen- 
erators into  the  junk-heap,  and  buy  substitutes  of  my  make, 
wouldn't  it  first  order  its  experts  to  spend  all  the  time  neces- 
sary testing  the  principles  on  which  my  generator  was  con- 
structed? The  fundamental  question  would  be  whether  I 
had  exploited  some  mechanical  fallacy,  or  had  found  a  new 
application  of  physical  laws. 

"Now  let  me  tell  you  one  or  two  facts,  Mr.  Lyon.  These 
are  not  theorizings.  They  are  things  I  know,  although  no  one 
has  the  means  yet  of  stating  them  with  numerical  exactness. 

"In  the  first  place,  there  never  has  been  a  great  constructive 
era  in  the  world,  a  time  when  men  pooled  their  forces,  and 
moved  things,  and  changed  things,  that  did  not  get  a  part  of 
its  power  from  some  sort  of  common  faith.  It  might  not  have 
been  in  logical  form  in  the  minds  of  many  men,  but  it  made 
many  men  feel  alike,  and  hope  alike,  and  look  in  the  same 
direction,  and  march  in  the  line  of  their  outlook. 

"In  the  second  place,  since  the  era  of  household  industries 
closed,  and  capitalistic  industry  began,  many  things  have 
combined  to  queer  men's  fundamental  faiths.  The  men  with 
overgrown  genius  for  accumulation  have  developed  a  tech- 
nique, and  their  Boswells  have  lackeyed  together  a  theory  to 
match,  which  would  beautifully  account  for  everything  if  the 
world  were  nothing  but  a  big  quartz-mill,  and  the  majority 
fulfilled  their  destiny  by  running  it,  while  a  few  made  off 
with  the  product.    The  rest  of  mankind  have  been  in  a  sort 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


of  dazo,  from  whidi  here  and  there  groups  have  emerged  with 
a  faith  more  or  less  frantically  advertised  to  carry  in  it.self  the 
regeneration  of  things;  but  on  the  whole  the  quiu'tz-mill 
theory  and  practice  have  been  the  only  consistent  ground 
gainers. 

"In  the  third  place,  a  faith  is  diffusing  through  our  genera- 
tion, and  is  fast  winning  all  but  the  men  who  have  sold  their 
souls  to  things,  that  the  meaning  of  life  is  the  survival  of 
types  that  are  superior  in  all  'round  values,  not  merely  in 
brute  power.  It  is  faith  that  the  world  belongs  to  the  workers, 
and  in  proportion  to  the  merit  of  their  work.  It  is  faith  that 
our  governments  and  our  businesses,  and  the  one  no  more  nor 
less  than  the  other,  are  merely  machineries  to  furnish  the 
means  by  which  this  progress  of  human  types  may  proceed. 
They  are  not  ends  in  themselves,  entitled  to  take  tribute  of 
human  sacrifice  for  their  separate  satisfaction.  They  are 
worth  what  they  are  worth  as  valets  of  men  devoted  to  the 
main  pursuit.  It  is  faith  that  capital,  which  a  pagan  faith 
was  binding  as  the  cumulative  burden  of  their  servitude  upon 
most  men's  shoulders,  is  to  be  sanctified  as  a  medium  of  hu- 
man realization.  From  the  mass  of  men  who  have  only  inar- 
ticulate feelings  of  this  faith,  to  the  few  who  speak  some  of 
its  simplest  words,  and  here  and  there  the  ones  who  have 
thought  it  through  as  a  philosophy,  it  is  marshalling  modern 
men  in  a  new  migration  to  a  promised  land.  It  is  a  recon- 
structing Weltanschauung,  as  the  Germans  say;  a  way  of  put- 
ting things  together  .so  that  they  merge  into  one  meaning ;  a 
morality  of  promises  in  the  place  of  prohibitions ;  a  religion 
that  grows  out  of  life  and  with  life,  instead  of  descending  upon 
life  to  stunt  it. 

"In  the  fourth  place,  the  Avery  strike  is  a  calmly  thought- 
out  movement  to  secure  a  sample  public  profession  of  this 
faith  in  application  to  the  practice  of  a  big  concern.  Incredi- 
ble as  everybody  called  it  in  advance,  men  and  means  enough 
have  supported  this  faith  to  create  the  situation  which  exists 
between  us  today.  Everybody  called  it  an  utterly  impractical 
attempt  to  make  working  men  fight  for  a  proposition  that 
meant  nothing  tangible  to  any  of  them,  even  if  they  won  out. 
Here  we  are,  however.  You  have  no  doubt  whether  we  have 
been  fighting  and  are  fighting  still.  And  the  thing  that  we 
are  fighting  about,  as  it  stands  in  the  mind  of  the  average 
fighter,  may  be  reduced  to  this: — 'We  demand  a  definite 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


promise  to  begin  the  working  out  of  plans  to  manage  capital 
in  a  democratic  way.'  " 

''In  the  fifth  place,  'the  democratic  way'  is  getting  a 
meaning  as  fertilizing  today  for  economics  as  it  was  in  the 
eighteenth  century  for  politics.  The  plain  man  hasn't  a  cut 
and  dried  definition  of  democracy  now,  but  he  knows  a  lot  of 
things  that  make  in  its  direction,  and  others  that  make  against 
it,  and  it  is  getting  harder  to  fool  him  about  the  sort  of  thing 
that  shall  have  his  support.  I  find  the  working-man  calls  it 
the  real  thing  when  I  tell  him  that  democracy  means  living 
together  in  such  a  way  that  everybody  gets  his  full  share  of 
backing  from  everybody  else  in  doing  his  best  to  make  the 
most  of  life ;  and  in  return  everybody  does  all  that  is  in  him 
to  deserve  his  neighbor's  support. 

"I  don't  mean  to  say  that  many  men  have  thought  their 
democratic  faith  much  further  into  detail ;  but  whenever  I 
tell  working  men  what  democracy  means  to  me,  the  response 
I  get  convinces  me  that  a  humaner  faith  is  tugging  harder 
at  the  hearts  of  more  people  than  any  of  us  imagine. 

"So  far  as  I  can  sense  the  meaning  of  the  tide  of  democracy 
behind  this  strike,  it  is  a  pa.ssionate  feeling,  reaching  deep 
below  the  mental  level  where  it  is  a  reasoned  theory,  that  our 
social  agreements  have  right  soon  got  to  make  a  place  for  three 
things;  and  you  needn't  look  far  to  find  the  pressure  for  each 
of  these  three  things  behind  every  move  the  strike  has  made. 

"First, — and  at  this  transition  point  out  of  the  capitalistic 
aberration  into  sanity  practically  most  important — is  that  the 
theories  and  policies  of  business  shall  frankly  recognize  the 
literal  fact  of  the  operative  partnership  of  workers,  and  shall 
honestly  accept  the  moral  consequence  of  corresponding 
right  to  partnership  in  control.  I  said  enough  at  the  start 
about  the  fact  of  partnership  wherever  useful  work  is  going 
on.  This  reality  of  partnership  is  filling  the  minds  of  work- 
ers, and  it  will  not  rest  till  it  refashions  their  democracy.  The 
fact  that  every  business  is  an  organization  of  men  who  are 
necessary  to  one  another  on  the  operative  side,  foreordains 
sooner  or  later  a  regime  of  partnership  in  information,  part- 
nership in  influence,  partnership  in  deciding  policies,  partner- 
ship in  adjusting  principles  of  distribution ;  an  active  part- 
nership of  every  worker  in  giving  spiritual  meaning  to  the 
work;  not  merely  dumb  and  menial  partnership  in  physical 
operation. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


The  second  thing  grades  np  in  importance  with  tlie  first, 
because  it  is  the  most  necessary  means  to  that  end.  Because 
partnership  is  cooperation  in  getting  a  common  result ;  be- 
cause the  working  partners  in  business  are  not  cogs  but  men ; 
the  man-to-man  relations  in  the  economic  process  imply  com- 
munity of  knowledge  among  the  partners  about  the  purposes 
of  the  process,  the  policies  pursued  in  promoting  the  purposes, 
and  all  the  reasons  why  these  policies,  and  not  others,  are  the 
best.  There  is  no  democracy  where  some  of  the  partners  deny 
to  other  partners  information  which  affects  the  interests  of  all. 
Everything  which  it  is  right  to  do  in  a  democracy  it  is  right 
to  do  in  the  open.  Democracy  needs  publicity  as  a  disinfec- 
tant. 

"The  third  thing  is  merely  the  last  and  largest  look  we  can 
get  at  present  at  the  meaning  of  democracy.  What  are  we 
driving  at?  What  is  our  standard  of  value?  What  is  the  last 
test  we  can  apply  to  human  programmes,  to  decide  whether 
they  are  vnse  and  just  or  foolish  and  selfish? 

"This  is  where  it  is  hardest  not  to  give  license  to  what  I 
confess  I  regard  rather  literally  as  my  prophetic  office.  T 
don't  apologize  to  any  one  for  my  belief  that  I've  made  out 
more  reliable  landmarks  than  most  men  who  call  themselves 
practical  are  willing,  on  week  days  at  any  rate,  to  be  suspected 
of  laying  their  course  by.  The  papers  have  reported  me  so 
often  on  this  subject,  and  you  have  probably  kept  tab  on  me 
so  closely,  that  a  reading  by  title  is  enough  for  the  present. 
The  democratic  faith  is  substantially  a  belief  in  men  as  a 
standard  of  value.  It  doesn't  quarrel  with  any  one  who  thinks 
he  can  see  beyond  human  values,  provided  that  his  assump- 
tion of  larger  vision  doas  not  in  practice  depress  these  nearer 
values.  The  most  worthful  things  we  know  are  the  qualities 
of  men.  and  their  reciprocities  with  one  another  on  the  basis 
of  a  rational  scale  of  valuation  of  the  qualities.  The  goal  of 
democracy  is  not  a  point  where  the  human  process  may  be 
supposed  to  end.  It  is  an  illimitable  development  through 
conditions  progressively  favorable  to  the  production  of  the 
highest  types  and  most  harmonious  assortments  of  human 
values.  Life  is  worth  while,  and  all  the  material  conditions 
and  machineries  and  organizations  of  life  get  their  scale  of 
importance,  just  in  the  ratio  that  the  whole  and  the  parts  are 
adjusted  to  the  supreme  purpose  of  realizing  the  possibilities 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


of  persons.  Everything  intermediate  is  means.  The  end  of 
Hfe  is  transformation  of  all  other  power  into  personality. 

"It  sounds  occult,  I  admit,  and  a  syllable  or  two  of  it  at  a 
time  has  to  be  diluted  with  much  every-day  experience  to 
make  it  reveal  itself  to  the  man  on  the  street.  I'm  giving  it 
to  you  in  its  lowest  terms,  as  an  algebraic  formula  of  the  vital 
faith  that  is  actually  settling  itself  into  position,  in  the  minds 
of  this  generation,  to  mould  the  democracy  of  the  future.  It 
may  strike  you  as  grotesque,  but  without  stopping  to  argue  it, 
I'm  prepared  to  defend  this  way  of  expressing  the  whole  situa- 
tion : — The  eighteenth  century  democracy  of  'Liberty,  Equal- 
ity, Fraternity'  was  to  the  twentieth  century  democracy  of 
'Partnership,  Publicity,  Personality,'  as  the  boy  with  the 
penny  whistle  to  the  trumpeter  of  the  troop. 

''Now,  Mr.  Lyon,  I'm  prepared  to  answer  for  the  'upper 
ether  and  angels'  food.'  While  everybody  back  of  the  strike 
has  not  gone  into  all  this  philosophizing  of  its  animus,  in 
some  shape  or  other  everybody  behind  the  strike  has  had  in 
mind  the  general  drift  of  what  I  have  been  saying;  and  all 
these  shares  in  the  faith  of  democracy  are  massing  up  the 
momentum  of  the  movement.  The  spirit  of  the  crusade  is 
packed  into  the  perfectly  specific  battle  cry.  Partnership  with- 
out representation  is  undemocratic.  You  will  have  to  forget 
your  American  history  to  believe  that  this  is  too  abstract  a 
proposition  for  a  popular  slogan.  We  do  not  pretend  to  know 
the  form  or  the  extent  of  wage  earners'  representation  that 
will  finally  prove  to  be  fair.  We  have  merely  started  with  the 
irreducible  minimum  that  the  unrepresented  haven't  a  square 
deal.  Our  demand  for  an  employees'  member  on  the  Avery 
Board  means  simply  that  our  faith  in  democracy  does  not 
stop  with  words ;  but  from  this  out  democracy  is  prepared  to 
get  itself  realized  in  more  consistent  deeds." 

It  is  seldom  easy  in  the  darkness  to  take  it  as  a  sign  of  dawn. 
Since  he  last  spoke,  Lyon  had  been  listening  to  Graham  with 
deepening  conflict  between  sympathy  with  his  ideals  and  con- 
viction that  practical  use  of  them  in  ending  the  strike  was 
impossible.  He  wanted  to  be  as  candid  about  one  side  of  the 
case  as  the  other ;  but  his  sense  of  responsibility  held  him  back, 
and  Graham  threw  in  his  ultimate  appeal. 

"I  didn't  come  here  as  a  bully,  Mr.  Lyon,  and  a  conference 
like  this  is  no  place  for  threats.    You  have  called  on  me  for 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DOVE    OF    PEACE 


the  practical  side  of  our  theories  thougli,  and  there  hasn't  been 
a  time  since  the  strike  began  when  tlie  practical  side  could  be 
>tated  with  more  confidence  than  at  this  moment.  Instead 
of  being  at  a  loss  for  means  of  making  our  campaign  effective, 
fate  is  taking  active  operations  out  of  our  hands,  and  fighting 
our  battle  to  a  more  decisive  finish  than  we  want.  Next  to  los- 
ing this  fight,  the  worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  us  would 
be  for  the  Avery  Company  to  go  to  the  wall.  I  can't  believe 
you  are  worse  infomied  than  we  are  about  the  New  Jersey 
scheme.  I  presume  you  know  at  leas-t  as  well  as  we  do  that 
unless  you  can  settle  the  strike  within  two  weeks  the  Avery 
Company  might  as  well  wind  up  its  affairs." 

Of  course  Lyon  could  admit  no  knowledge  of  the  kind;  and 
instead  of  meeting  the  hint  directly  he  put  in  evidence  an- 
other fact,  leaving  Graham  to  draw  his  own  inferences,  but 
with  the  feeling  that  it  would  show  the  hopelessnass  of  further 
discussion.  "Perhaps  the  Company's  estimate  of  that  factor, 
Mr.  Graham,  may  be  inferred  from  an  action  of  our  Board 
this  morning.  It  took  a  vote  in  which  it  more  emphatically 
reaflfirmed  what  it  had  already  declared  a  hundred  times,  that 
sooner  than  elect  to  its  membership  a  man  named  from  the 
outside,  it  would  sell  its  machinery  as  scrap  iron,  and  turn  the 
plant  into  a  roast  peanut  emporium.  If  the  strikers  are  really 
beginning  to  see  that  they  have  some  interests  in  common 
with  the  Company,  and  if  they  believe  the  situation  is  as  pre- 
carious as  you  assume,  the  only  rational  course  is  a  modifica- 
tion of  their  demands." 

For  an  hour  Halleck  had  been  scribbling  busily  on  a  blot- 
ting pad,  while  taking  in  every  shading  and  modulation  of 
the  talk.  He  had  torn  off  sheet  after  sheet  and  shredded  them 
into  the  waste  basket.  He  had  that  afternoon  found  some- 
thing to  work  on  in  a  pamphlet  containing  the  terms  of  a 
propo.sition  made  by  English  employers  to  strikers  in  the  ship- 
yards. The  circumstances  were  so  different  from  those  in 
Chicago  that  Halleck  was  handicapped  almost  as  much  as  he 
was  stimulated  by  the  proposals.  While  the  gloom  was  clos- 
ing in  on  the  prospect  during  the  last  few  minutes,  his  senses 
seemed  to  be  quickened  in  the  same  ratio.  He  shook  off  the 
encumbrance,  and  reduced  the  ideas  he  had  been  struggling 
with  to  a  seri&s  of  clauses  which  made  a  po.ssible  meeting 
ground  between  the  two  extremes.     He  read  them  a  second 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


time,  then  a  third,  a  fourth  and  a  fifth.  They  conceded  so 
inucii,  yet  reserved  so  much ;  they  left  with  the  company  all  its 
power,  while  committing  it  to  a  profession  of  faith  and  a 
practical  policy  which  affirmed  all  the  principles  for  which 
the  strikers  contended ;  they  did  not  disturb  the  company  in 
its  one  absolute  refusal,  while  they  granted  all  that  the  strik- 
ers had  claimed  as  essential  in  the  meaning  of  the  one  impos- 
sible item — all  in  all  they  were  so  balanced,  yet  so  construc- 
tive, that  Halleck  was  obliged  to  set  the  brakes  on  his  own 
assurance.  He  did  not  see  how  either  party  could  afford  to 
reject  the  solution ;  yet  it  almost  passed  belief  that  an  adjust- 
ment so  simple  could  end  such  a  mighty  conflict. 

He  had  reached  this  eager  state  just  as  Lyon  and  Graham 
were  dropping  into  moody  contemplation  of  their  nullifying 
result.  They  had  been  so  centered  upon  their  task  that  Hal- 
leck was  left  outside  their  range  of  attention.  Each  had  an 
obscure  feeling  that  it  was  a  call  to  begin  life  over  again,  after 
writing  off  the  irreparable,  when  he  reappeared  to  them  with 
the  manner  of  completing  the  last  thing  said,  instead  of  in- 
troducing a  wholly  unexpected  innovation.  "Listen  to  this  I" 
and  he  read : — 

Memorandum  of  a  Basis  of  Agreemient 

Between 

the  Avery  Company  and  its  Employees. 

1.  The  Company  acknowledges  the  principle  that  work  in  its  employ 
creates  an  equity  in  the  business. 

2.  Since  no  more  exact  way  to  calculate  this  equity  has  been  dis- 
covered than  the  adjustment  secured  by  established  business  practices, 
the  Company  holds  that  the  only  practical  method  of  giving  effect  to 
Clause  1,  is  cooperation  between  the  Company  and  its  employees  in  dis- 
covering how  the  operations  of  the  Comj^any  may  more  closely  apply 
the  aforesaid  principle. 

3.  To  that  end  the  Company  agrees  to  designate  a  standing  com- 
mittee of  conference,  to  act  with  a  similar  committee  of  the  employees, 
in  taking  into  consideration  all  the  affairs  of  the  Company,  particu- 
larly everj'thing  affecting  the  interests  of  the  employees,  and  from  time 
to  time  to  propose  moditications  of  the  general  policies  of  the  Comjsany, 
whenever  the  conferees  are  able  to  unite  on  recommendations  which 
in  their  judgment  would  tend  better  to  protect  all  the  interests  con- 
cerned. 

4.  The  Company  agrees  to  accept  any  method,  satisfactory  to  the 
employees,  of  constituting  the  membership  of  the  employees'  committee; 
provided  only  that  all  such  members  shall  be  on  the  pay  roll  of  the 
Company. 

383 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DOVE    OF    PEACE 


5.  The  Company  agrees  to  instruct  its  committee  to  cooperate  with 
the  employees'  committee  in  working  out  specifications  of  the  kinds  of 
information  about  tiie  atfairs  of  the  Company  which  shall  be  put  at 
the  disposal  of  the  committee,  together  with  the  rules  which  shall  gov- 
ern access  of  the  committee  to  this  information,  and  its  transmission  to 
the  body  of  employees. 

6.  The  Company  agrees  in  good  faith  to  cooperate  with  the  employees 
in  carrying  out  the  spirit  of  this  agreement,  by  adoption  of  details 
which  experience  may  from  time  to  time  show  to  be  necessary  in  order 
to  give  it  full  effect. 

7.  As  rapidly  as  the  different  departments  can  employ  their  full 
force,  the  Company  agrees  to  restore  all  its  employees  to  the  places 
which  they  held  before  the  strike.  Preference  in  reinstatement  will  be 
in  accordance  w'ith  length  of  previous  service. 

8.  The  Company  agrees  to  put  its  employees  as  far  as  possible  in 
possession  of  the  tenements  which  they  occupied  before  the  strike.  If 
this  is  not  feasible,  the  Company  will  extend  its  building  operations  so 
as  to  provide  rents  for  all  employees  who  desire  to  occupy  the  Company 's 
tenements. 

9.  The  employees  agree  to  return  to  work  as  soon  as  these  terms 
have  been  accepted  by  the  Company  and  by  the  strike  organization. 

10.  The  employees  agree,  upon  returning  to  work,  to  sign  individual 
contracts  not  to  join  in  a  strike  against  the  Company  for  a  term 
of . 

11.  The  employees  agree  to  join  in  constituting  and  controlling  an 
employees'  committee,  as  provided  for  in  Clauses  3  and  4,  and  to  make 
that  committee  their  medium  of  communication  with  the  Company. 

It  was  SO  obvious  that  it  was  incredible !  A^irtually  the  same 
reaction  was  in  Lyon's  mind  and  in  Graham's.  "If  a  thing 
so  plausible  does  not  conceal  some  fatal  flaw,  how  could  we 
have  kept  up  this  frightful  fight  so  long  before  finding  it  out?" 
The  detective  glances  that  the  three  men  interchanged  were 
both  tragic  and  pathetic.  Each  in  his  way  was  suffering  for 
peace.  Neither  could  quite  believe  that  the  apparently  unat- 
tainable was  within  such  easy  grasp.  Each  feared  to  trust 
his  own  senses  that  he  was  not  being  played  upon  by  some 
spiteful  illusion. 

After  a  space  of  oppressive  blankness,  Lyon  took  up  the 
inquest: — "Read  it  again,  Halleck,  and  slow!" 

Halleck  spaced  off  the  words,  stopping  at  the  end  of  each 
clause  for  it  to  register  its  total  effect.  There  was  no  comment 
till  he  had  finished ;  and  the  long  pause  when  he  was  done 
proved  that  the  document  at  least  stood  the  test  as  something 
that  must  be  considered. 

Lyon  expressed  the  first  opinion: — "If  anything  can  be 
counted  on  more  certainly  than  a  business  man's  contempt 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DOVE    OF    PEACE 


for  generalities,  it  is  his  suspicion  of  them.  Pocketing  a  loss 
of  almost  any  definite  amount  is  easier  for  him  than  signing  his 
name  to  a  blanket  clause  like  the  first." 

"But  what  harm  can  it  do,"  defended  Halleck,  "when  no 
rights  whatever  are  surrendered  by  it,  except  license  to  re- 
fuse to  hear  advice?" 

"Of  course,"  Graham  submitted,  "that  first  clause  is  the 
meat  of  the  matter.  In  form,  it  isn't  what  we  have  fought  for. 
In  substance  it  is  all  we  demand.  At  the  same  time  it  leaves 
the  Company  standing  pat  on  its  original  refusal,  while  it 
yields  everything  that  we  expected  from  the  thing  refused." 

Then  the  sitting  passed  into  executive  session  before  put- 
ting the  memorandum  on  its  final  passage.  Halleck's  word- 
ing was  not  changed  by  the  inspection,  but  the  three  men  had 
to  face  the  fact  that  they  were  after  all  not  the  court  of  last 
resort.  When  they  had  done  their  work,  Graham  simply 
recorded  his  personal  decision : — "I  am  not  a  Czar.  My  opin- 
ion will  go  a  good  way  with  our  organization,  but  it  may  be 
overruled.  I  promise  you,  however,  gentlemen,  that  so  far 
as  my  influence  goes  it  shall  be  exerted  in  favor  of  settlement 
on  these  terms." 

Lyon  was  equally  explicit :  "It  is  needless  to  say  that  for 
more  than  one  reason  I  have  no  way  to  affect  the  action  of  the 
Company  except  by  advice.  I  believe  it  would  be  on  the  whole 
an  advantage  for  business  if  it  could  put  itself  on  this 
plane.  In  my  judgment  it  would  be  perfectly  safe  and  feasi- 
ble for  our  Company  to  make  this  experiment,  but  I  can  make 
no  predictions  about  its  adoption.  I  shall  advocate  it,  how- 
ever, to  the  best  of  my  ability  with  the  directors." 

It  was  long  after  midnight  when  Halleck  locked  the  door 
of  the  deserted  resort  behind  the  fagged  debaters.  They  took 
the  same  car  for  a  short  distance.  Graham  had  hardly  taken 
leave  at  his  transfer  point  when  Lyon  was  aware  of  a  change 
in  Halleck.  His  quicker  breathing,  his  pallor,  his  evidently 
constrained  composure,  were  symptoms  that  Lyon  had  never 
seen  in  him  before.  He  was  alert  in  an  instant.  There  was 
no  one  near  to  listen,  but  Halleck  spoke  in  a  rapid  husky 
whisper.  "The  best  service  you  can  do  a  man  sometimes, 
Logan,  is  to  give  him  a  rest  from  his  own  troubles  by  loading 
him  with  yours.  I've  put  this  off  too  long.  Perhaps  you  and 
the  rest  of  the  town  know  better  than  I  do  what  came  to  me 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DOVE    OF    PEACE 


in  full  only  a  few  days  ago.  I  have  struggled  against  my 
better  judgment,  and  have  hoped  to  avoid  extremes.  I  wanted 
to  rescue  my  M'ife  from  herself,  and  I  wanted  to  avoid  throw- 
ing a  feather's  weight  of  my  own  affairs  against  my  possible 
power  to  help  bring  good  out  of  the  evil  in  this  labor  situation. 
Since  Bobbie  was  born,  I  have  not  been  Mrs.  Ilalleck's  hus- 
band, but  her  guardian ;  and  it  turns  out  a  miserably  unsuc- 
cessful one.  The  end  ha.s  come.  What  remains  must  be  seen 
through  other  eyes  than  mine.  I  must  have  your  help  and 
Barclay's.  Perhaps  I  may  be  able  to  do  without  you  till  you 
can  give  me  some  time  that  doesn't  belong  to  the  Company. 
Barclay  knows  things  that  must  have  their  weight.  I  have 
written  him  he  must  be  ready  to  come  at  any  moment.  Un- 
less something  new  happens  I  can  let  the  time  depend  on 
you." 

After  gi^^ng  Lyon's  hand  a  grip  that  he  felt  till  the  next 
shock  came,  Halleck  caught  a  car  headed  in  a  diverging 
direction. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE  DEGENERATE 


THE    DEGENERATE 


XXIV 

THE   DEGENERATE 

"The    one    credit    to    the    orgy    was    a    currish    sense    of 
accountability." 


BUCK  LYON  had  been  running  strictly  true  to  form. 
Judicious  handling  by  relays  of  experienced  coaches 
had  at  last  landed  him  among  the  certificate  holders  of  the 
most  select  forcing  establishment  for  cub  intellects  in  the  city. 

With  fewer  flunks  and  conditions,  he  had  meanwhile  passed 
the  entrance  examinations  of  several  other  types  of  institu- 
tions, whose  hall-mark  had  left  a  much  deeper  impress  on  his 
propensities. 

Buck's  Chief  of  Staff  was  Kid  Granniss. 

This  young  gentleman  had  made  Buck's  acquaintance  at 
an  inter-school  track  meet.  For  reasons  not  ascertained,  he 
had  found  it  convenient  to  follow  up  the  opening.  A  trial 
trip  or  so  put  the  tw^o  youths  on  rather  easy  terms,  and  latent 
affinities  rapidly  ripened  intimacy  into  inseparability. 

The  Kid  was  a  friend  of  the  trainer  of  the  Pan-University 
School  team.  The  precocity  and  affluence  of  his  jewelry  ex- 
hibit were  sign  and  seal  of  his  prowess  in  the  junior  heavy- 
weight class. 

The  advent  of  the  Kid  occurred  at  a  peculiarly  convenient 
juncture  in  Buck's  affairs. 

The  juice  had  been  squeezed  out  of  all  the  innocent  fruit 
in  sight,  and  Buck  was  casting  about  for  something  with  a 
livelier  flavor. 

The  concurrent  conditions  were  also  remarkably  pro- 
pitious. 

Buck's  mother  had  discovered  that  his  devotion  to  study 
had  been  excessive  for  one  of  his  tender  years.  If  she  had 
been  fully  advised  of  his  frequent  associations  and  employ- 
ments, between  the  time  of  locking  himself  into  his  room  at 
night  and  letting  himself  into  the  house  through  a  rear  door 
at  the  approach  of  morning,  her  correlation  of  antecedents 
and  consequents  might  have  been  somewhat  disarranged. 
Nothing  so  untoward  had  cast  doubt,  however,  upon  the 
inerrancy  of  her  maternal  affections. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DEGENERATE 


The  fashionable  specialist  who  liad  lately  displaced  the  fam- 
ily physician  in  Mrs.  Lj^on's  councils  had  never  been  obliged 
to  undergo  treatment  for  moral  farsightedness ;  but  the  vogue 
of  that  astute  auxiliaiy  was  visible  testimony  that  he  had 
qualified  as  an  accomplished  utilitarian  within  the  shorter  cir- 
cuits. His  impressiveness  was  accentuated  by  the  profound 
and  protracted  consideration  through  which  he  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  he  must  prescribe  precisely  what  he  had  seen 
at  the  start  his  patients  were  bound  to  have. 

The  doctor's  ratification  of  Mrs.  Lyon's  diagnosis  was  to  be 
expected  from  a  scientific  man  of  his  rare  good  sense.  "A 
young  fellow  of  his  spirit  mustn't  be  allowed  to  go  to  the  limit 
of  his  ambition.  He  will  overhaul  the  slow  coaches  soon 
enough.  Give  him  a  year  in  the  pasture.  Plenty  of  out- 
doors. No  fret  about  a  harness.  Let  him  kick  up  his  heels  all 
he  pleases.  He  will  be  the  better  for  it  in  the  end  if  his  body 
has  a  turn,  after  this  long  pull  at  the  books." 

While  the  family  arrangement  did  not  include  formal 
adoption  of  The  Kid  as  companion  to  the  delicate  scion,  and 
keeper  of  his  conscience ;  while  it  must  even  be  admitted  that, 
until  his  variation  of  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  relatively  far  ad- 
vanced. Buck  neglected  mention  of  his  mentor  at  home ;  nat- 
ural selection  took  care  of  that  detail,  including  the  usual  pro- 
visions of  nature  for  guarding  against  premature  exposure  of 
her  more  subtile  workings. 

In  the  language  of  less  circuitous  and  inconsequent  judg- 
ment than  Mrs.  Lyon's  fond-motherly  type  of  opinion.  Buck 
was  turned  loose  on  the  town.  In  the  parental  version,  he 
was  giving  his  body  a  chance  to  get  even  with  his  brain.  The 
unfeeling  vulgarity  of  the  street  simply  placed  here  and  there 
a  bet  on  the  Lyons'  chances  in  the  familiar  game ;  ''Given  a 
boy  with  nothing  to  do,  with  plenty  of  money,  and  all  his 
time  to  do  it  in.  and  the  steering  in  proper  hands,  how  long 
will  it  take  to  find  the  answer?" 

Promotion  through  the  early  grades  of  restaurant,  and  pool 
room  and  theatre  wisdom  had  been  rapid  and  eventless.  It 
had  been  more  a  mass  process  than  an  individual  venture; 
but  it  had  served  to  sift  out  a  half  dozen  likely  candidates 
for  faster  company. 

It  was  at  this  auspicious  moment  that  Buck  and  The  Kid 
discovered  each  other. 

The  latter  probably  numbered  in  his  collection  of  trophies 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     DEGENERATE 


no  honor  medals  in  the  methodology  of  education ;  but  if  our 
present  purpose  permitted  digression  to  a  remotely  relevant 
theme,  we  might  show  that  this  was  an  evidence  of  the  clan- 
nishness  of  institutions.  Kid  Granniss  needed  no  arbitrary  at- 
testation of  attainments  nor  of  regularity.  He  respired  in- 
terest-psychology. He  exuded  inductive  pedagogy.  He  ex- 
uberated in  progressive  experience.  He  had  not  been  led 
astray  by  the  mutation  theory.  He  believed  in  variation  by 
continuity.  He  seemed  never  to  lack  resources  for  daily 
change  of  programme ;  but  no  more  did  he  fall  into  the  bad 
management  of  setting  the  date  of  a  number  before  appetite 
for  that  particular  type  of  offering  had  been  developed,  or 
after  the  demand  had  appeared  for  a  more  highly  seasoned 
bill  of  fare. 

Mrs.  Lyon  did  not  believe  in  nagging  a  boy.  She  wanted 
her  son  to  be  let  alone,  and  to  form  his  own  character.  She 
was  sure  a  boy  must  be  independent,  in  order  to  learn  re- 
sponsibility and  self-control.  Of  course  she  expected  Chester 
to  confide  in  her;  but  the  fact  that  his  tastes  tended  from  the 
beginning  in  lines  which  even  his  mother's  partiality  could 
not  have  approved,  early  gave  a  color  of  romance  to  his  ac- 
counts of  himself;  ajid  this  embellishment  necessarily  grew 
more  and  more  imaginative  as  the  action  advanced. 

It  was  also  a  matter  of  curious  speculation  to  Mrs.  Lyon  that 
Chester  was  so  little  attracted  to  any  of  the  young  ladies  of 
his  own  age  in  her  circle  of  acquaintance.  The  ''proms"  and 
"informals"  that  he  talked  about  seldom  drew  from  lists  of 
young  women  which  she  could  very  precisely  verify ;  but  so  far 
as  she  could  infer  from  guarded  allusions  by  the  mothers  of 
some  of  his  boy  friends,  Chester  was  not  singular  in  this  re- 
spect. Mrs.  Lyon  was  too  tactful  to  pry  into  the  matter ;  and  es- 
pecially after  an  inadvertent  reference  to  it  had  drawn  from 
the  sensitive  young  man  the  annoyed  exclamation,  "All  those 
girls  with  the  tabby-cat  attachments  make  me  weary !  What's 
the  fun  of  girls  anyway,  if  they've  always  got  to  be  practic- 
ing their  Sunday  School  lessons!"  From  this  time,  Mrs. 
Lyon  leaned  towards  the  view  that  refined  society  had  be- 
come too  artificial,  and  had  needlessly  restricted  young  peo- 
ple's freedom. 

The  second  house  maid  might  have  thrown  some  light  upon 
the  subject ;  but  to  do  so  would  hardly  have  been  for  her  in- 
terest, as  she  saw  it.    That  discreet  young  person  ordered  her 

393 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DEGENERATE 


conduct  toward  Mrs.  Lyon's  son  with  a  reserve  at  certain 
points  in  notable  contrast  with  her  responsiveness,  and  even 
coniphiisance,  in  other  matters  usually  regarded  as  more  vital. 
On  none  of  the  occasions  for  instance  when  she  had  engaged 
in  conversation  with  the  young  man  of  the  family,  had  she 
given  him  reason  to  suppose  that  ^he  was  advised  of  the  ex- 
istence of  The  Kid,  still  less  that  they  had  a  mutual  under- 
standing. Under  all  the  circumstances,  it  was  quite  out  of  the 
question  that  any  member  of  the  household  should  have  ob- 
served a  coincidence  between  her  application  for  employment 
at  the  Lyon  homestead  and  Buck's  formation,  a  few  weeks 
previous,  of  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with  the  em- 
bryo pugilist. 

It  would  be  fruitless  to  inquire  how  much  information,  and 
of  what  sort,  Mrs.  Lyon  would  have  found  necessary  before 
deciding  upon  a  change  of  policy  toward  her  son.  She  had, 
for  example,  never  seen  him  in  company  with  this  same 
young  woman,  during  runs  of  an  hour  or  two  from  the  city. 
Data  not  in  Mrs.  Lyon's  possession  would  certainly  have  been 
requisite  to  satisfy  her  of  the  purposes  which  may  have  ac- 
counted for  their  tarrying  at  certain  points  during  these  trips. 
It  would  accordingly  be  idle  to  conjecture  what  her  theory 
might  have  been  of  the  nature  of  Chester's  interest  in  the 
servants. 

Buck's  fresh  air  regimen  was  not  carried  to  the  extreme  of 
unintermittent  exposure  to  the  caprices  of  climate.  Indeed, 
there  were  intervals  of  considerable  duration  when  the  treat- 
ment was  relaxed  by  recourse  to  a  variously  artificialized  at- 
mosphere. The  Kid  was  even  able  to  suggest  a  succession  of 
stimulating  occupations  for  which  interiors,  and  indeed  some- 
what isolated  and  retired  apartments  were  advisable.  Cer- 
tain of  these  pursuits  were  most  absorbing  when  confined  to 
select  companies  of  men,  preferably  of  a  type  so  constituted 
as  to  find  protracted  satisfaction  in  conferring  sums  of  money, 
without  visible  return,  upon  receptive  associates. 

Others  of  these  occasions  illustrated  the  resources  of  mixed 
society.  Here  again,  Mrs.  Lyon  might  have  found  material 
for  enlargement  of  her  views  upon  the  wisdom  and  the  un- 
wisdom of  social  conventions.  She  would  have  observed  that 
Chester  seemed  more  unconstrained  than  in  the  surroundings 
with  which  she  was  familiar.  At  the  same  time,  there  would 
have  been  food  for  reflection  in  the  fact  that  the  young  ladies 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     DEGENERATE 


who  graced  these  companies,  and  with  whom  Chester's  man- 
ner did  not  lack  animation,  had  quite  generally  discontinued 
the  use  of  Pasteurized  milk  as  a  favorite  beverage ;  while  their 
chaperons  were  either  preoccupied  elsewhere,  or  were  con- 
spicuously efficient  in  removing  accidental  barriers  to  en- 
joyment. 

No  slight  condiment  to  Buck's  relish  of  his  friend  was  The 
Kid's  easy-going  acquaintance  with  the  leading  spirits  in  these 
garish  social  strata.  It  is  one  thing  to  see  the  town  from  the 
cigarette  seats  in  the  rubber-neck  wagon,  and  quite  a  dif- 
ferent thing  to  know  you  would  be  welcomed  by  the  leading 
people,  at  any  hour  of  the  daj^  or  night,  without  an  invita- 
tion. In  a  remarkably  short  time  The  Kid's  progressive 
method  had  brought  Buck  within  the  lure  of  the  dizzy  ambi- 
tion to  carry  a  pass-key  to  the  sporting  world,  and  to  be  every- 
where on  terms  of  first-name  familiarity  with  the  main  flash. 

Since  it  had  never  been  required  of  Buck  that  he  should  toil 
or  spin  in  order  to  be  fed  and  clothed,  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
that  there  was  anything  demanding  inquiry  in  the  apparent 
amplitude  of  The  Kid's  revenues.  It  did  not  appear  that  he 
had  parents  who  might,  like  Buck's,  have  felt  it  a  duty  and  a 
privilege  to  furnish  an  income  commensurate  with  his  dig- 
nity. Neither  the  Probate  Court  nor  the  Board  of  Equaliza- 
tion had  ever  been  called  upon  to  take  cognizance  of  his  es- 
tate. If  Buck's  attention  had  ever  been  arrested  by  the  intri- 
cate subject  of  commissions,  invidious  interpretation  of  The 
Kid's  intimacies  with  the  hierarchy  of  managers  might  have 
been  suggested.  The  detail  that  the  number  joining  their 
various  expeditions  was  never  large  enough  to  evoke  The 
Kid's  protest,  so  long  as  Buck  did  not  object,  might  have  been 
worth  consideration.  The  Kid's  fastidiousness  in  matters  of 
tailoring  and  haberdashery,  and  his  solicitude  that  the  gang 
should  not  be  misinformed  about  the  perfectly  correct  sources 
of  these  and  other  supplies,  might  have  come  under  cruel 
suspicion.  None  of  these  interferences  with  the  even  tenor  of 
their  intercourse  occurred  however;  and  The  Kid's  vocation 
as  leader  of  leisure  and  fashion  was  accepted  with  a  piety 
which  presaged  conservative  adherence  to  the  orthodoxy  of 
the  gospel  of  privilege. 

But  certain  seeming  reversions  ])resently  became  prominent 
in  the  tastes  and  occupations  of  the  forceful  group  of  which 
Buck  and  The  Kid  were  important  members.     The  means 

395 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DEGENERATE 


were  not  at  Mi's.  Lyon's  disposal,  to  be  sure,  to  explain  the 
new  phenomena  as  withdrawals,  or  recoveries.  To  her  mind, 
so  far  as  she  was  informed  of  the  change  at  all,  the  boys  were 
merely  becoming  interested  in  a  new  group  of  the  same  sort 
of  young  women,  respectable  of  course,  but  not  of  the  best 
families,  who  had  attracted  them  while  they  were  in  prep 
school. 

Others,  not  specialists  in  the  psychology  of  degeneracy,  if 
put  in  possession  of  the  precise  facts,  might  have  inferred  that 
association  with  certain  feminine  types  had  at  last  produced 
the  normal  reaction,  and  that  the  boys  were  returning  to  less 
equivocal  interests. 

At  all  events  the  gang  had  turned  its  ingenuity  to  cultiva- 
tion of  acquaintances  among  the  girls  in  the  Lakeside  High 
School. 

Between  Buck  and  the  reputed  "beauty  of  the  school,"  Liz- 
zie Lawton,  there  had  been  what  was  known  in  school  gossip 
as  a  "crush"  at  first  sight. 

Lizzie's  parents  had  never  been  a.shamed  to  be  called  Cas- 
sidy,  and  their  modest  home  in  South  Halsted  Street  was  not 
to  be  despised ;  but  their  oldest  daughter's  husband  had  a  se- 
lect grocery  trade  in  Kenwood,  and  as  the  family  ambitions  be- 
gan to  centre  around  Lizzie,  it  was  decided  that  she  would 
have  a  better  chance  to  make  the  most  of  herself  if  she  lived 
with  her  sister  while  she  was  in  the  High  School,  and  adopted 
her  more  genteel  name. 

Lizzie  Lawton  was  a  fair  sample  of  that  product  of  which 
the  present  American  blend  is  so  prolific  and  so  prodigal — 
abounding  in  body,  alert  of  mind,  and  vibrant  with  a  thou- 
sand expectations.  Life  in  all  its  capacities  was  pulsing  in 
her,  and  a  little  of  the  sound  and  sight  of  others'  living  had 
begun  to  stir  her  senses  and  her  fancy.  Myster\%  romance, 
adventure,  admiration,  offerings,  yes  love  I  and  power  I  were 
in  the  world.  They  were  not  far  away!  They  might  come 
to  her  as  well  as  to  other  girls !  Each  curiosity  and  eagerness 
of  woman  expectant  was  tuned  to  the  pitch  of  a  vital  wave. 

Woman's  talisman,  as  Lizzie  made  it  out,  was  ability  to  at- 
tract men.  There  was  nothing  ignoble  in  the  secret,  as  she 
understood  it.  Beauty,  of  course :  and  she  was  not  vain  of  her 
beauty.  She  was  just  frankly  conscious  of  it,  and  confident. 
Wit,  she  thought,  and  good  temper,  and  no  hysterics,  and 
liking  for  helping  other  people  have  a  good  time — these  must 

396 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE     DEGENERATE 


be  the  things  that  make  the  popular  girl,  and  she  was  glad 
she  seemed  to  have  been  born  with  them.  She  was  pure 
minded,  generous,  affectionate,  ready — but  so  hungrily  un- 
satisfied ! 

Nothing  in  Lizzie  Lawton's  most  fervid  dreams  had  pic- 
tured quite  as  nuich  in  the  actual  world,  and  for  her  own  self, 
as  appeared  to  her  in  Buck  Lyon.  The  family  reputation 
alone  would  have  intoxicated  a  steadier  head ;  but  Lizzie  saw 
besides  in  Buck  himself  everything  strong  and  manly  that 
reading  and  imagination  had  made  her  admire.  More  than 
that,  he  was  not  an  empty  handed  hero.  He  came  with  no 
end  of  ability  to  change  school-girl  stupidity  in  a  moment  into 
the  whirl  which  she  mistook  for  real  life. 

The  acquaintance  was  only  two  or  three  weeks  old,  but 
youth  is  time  high-geared.  In  those  weeks  the  gang  had 
piloted  an  equal  number  of  High  School  girls  through  degrees 
of  initiation  into  world-wisdom  for  which  the  boys  uncour- 
iered  had  required  almost  as  many  years.  Yet  from  the  pres- 
ent view-point  of  the  gang,  the  girls  had  only  completed  the 
sort  of  rushing  stunts  that  had  prepared  the  way  for  The  Kid's 
appearance. 

It  had  been  a  supper  and  a  box-party.  As  the  curtain  fell, 
and  the  start  was  made  toward  the  exit.  Buck  pulled  his  lieu- 
tenant back  behind  the  portiere,  and  brusquely  whispered  the 
directions: — "Chase  yourself  now,  Kid,  and  call  off  the  rest, 
I'm  taking  her  over  to  Madam's.  She  thinks  the  actorines 
go  there  to  amuse  themselves  after  the  play.  Watch  me  find 
out  how  fast  she  warms  up.  Come  'round  in  an  hour  or  so 
if  you  want  to.    Ta-ta !" 

Buck  had  his  mother's  Brougham  a  block  away,  and  The 
Kid  made  it  easy  for  him  to  give  the  party  the  slip  and  start 
on  the  rest  of  his  programme.  As  they  stepped  out  after  a 
short  drive.  Buck  instructed  the  coachman,  "Pull  in  at  Sat- 
terlee's,  John.    I'll  'phone  over." 

Next  to  the  groping  urgings  of  blindfolded  nature,  Buck's 
busiest  accomplice  in  misleading  Lizzie  Lawton  was  her  own 
sensitiveness  to  the  shame  of  being  thought  "slow."  This 
was  her  one  morbidness — the  fear  of  betraying  some  sort  of 
ignorance  that  men  would  call  unsophisticated.  She  was  not 
a  bad  girl.  She  was  finely  proud  and  audacious  and  femi- 
nine.   Her  love  of  Buck  was  as  blameless  as  love  can  ever  be 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DEGENERATE 


when  bewildered  and  bedazzled  by  lavLshings  and  protesta- 
tions which  it  cannot  distinguish  from  love  as  honest  as  itself. 

Althongh  she  suspected  nothing  of  the  sort,  these  few  Aveeks 
had  been  for  Lizzie  Lawton  an  almost  continuous  rehearsal 
of  the  prologue  to  tlie  drama  of  The  Fall.  Unless  we  lodge 
some  of  our  arbitrary  theorizings  in  her  typical  healthy  de- 
veloi)ment,  she  had  never  been  tempted  until  she  found  that 
she  wanted  everything  that  Buck  wanted.  Then,  if  she  only 
knew !  If  there  were  some  one  she  could  ask !  Not  her  mother, 
for  she  wouldn't  under.'itand,  and  hardly  more  her  sister. 
Were  those  girls  on  the  Avenue  ever  in  her  place?  And  what 
did  they  do?  But  ahvays  when  Buck  wanted  most,  and  her 
heart  responded  most,  a  preventing  shadow  had  draw^n  be- 
tween him  and  her  begun  consents. 

Lizzie's  mettlesome  ambition  to  be  classed  by  the  boys,  and 
especially  by  Buck,  as  a  "good  fellow'"  was  to  have  its  most 
cynical  test  in  this  House  of  Dread.  She  wished  Buck  had 
not  wanted  to  take  her  there ;  but  somebody  went  there,  of 
course,  and  Buck  met  other  girls  there,  and  she  would  show 
less  nerve  than  they  if  she  didn't  go. 

The  house  was  one  of  those  landmarks  of  the  period  imme- 
diately following  the  fire  which  the  wave  of  expansion  had 
meanwhile  left  in  the  belt  of  desolation  between  the  centre 
and  the  newer  residence  districts.  It  had  been  the  mansion  of 
a  prominent  citizen.  Space  was  its  chief  distinction ;  yet  it 
had  put  out  extensions  rearward  since  it  had  become  some- 
thing different  from  a  family  residence. 

It  was  a  new  experience  to  Lizzie  to  be  obliged  to  pretend 
interest  in  adventure.  Her  light-heartedness  had  never  failed 
her  before,  but  there  was  nothing  natural  now  in  her  struggle 
to  appear  pleased  and  unconcerned. 

Her  instincts  enlightened  her  instantly  that  there  was  noth- 
ing in  the  place  to  which  anything  healthy  could  respond. 
The  big,  high  rooms,  with  the  heavy,  stuffy  hangings,  the  dim 
lights,  the  smoke-laden  air,  were  suffocating.  She  had  a  feel- 
ing that  invisible  lurkings  and  prowlings  were  all  around 
her.  The  women  w^ho  seemed  to  belong  there,  and  whose 
evident  efforts  to  attract  the  men  as  fast  as  they  appeared 
were  apparently  more  ingenious  than  successful,  were  of  a 
sort  that  Lizzie  had  never  noticed  before.  If  they  were  ac- 
tresses, their  costumes  were  different  from  anything  she  had 
seen  on  the  .stage.    One  or  two  of  them  were  inviting  the  men 

398 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DEGENERATE 


to  dance;  and  Lizzie's  eye  caught  flirtinos  of  draperies  in- 
tended to  allure  partners,  but  the}-  sent  her  heart  into  her 
throat;  and  only  that  untaught  maidenly  self-esteem  which 
could  not  risk  ridicule  suppressed  her  disgust,  and  her  fear 
and  her  longing  to  escape. 

Buck  drew  her  to  a  little  table  conveniently  placed  for 
watching  the  visitors.  He  ordered  mint  juleps,  and  while 
they  were  sipping  the  mixtures  which  answered  to  that  name, 
he  did  his  best  to  offset  the  first  impressions,  which  he  was  too 
wise  to  misunderstand.  He  told  Lizzie  not  to  be  bored  by 
these  old-timers.  The  real  push  would  be  coming  along  soon. 
He  tried  to  entertain  her  with  fictitious  gossip  about  the  people 
in  sight.  Lizzie  had  not  connected  her  alarm  with  Buck.  She 
had  no  suspicion  of  him  that  might  have  suggested  compari- 
son with  a  young  panther  poising  for  his  first  spring  at  live 
prey.  Yet  with  every  word  he  spoke  her  efforts  to  return  gay 
answers  became  more  forced. 

The  smell  of  musk  that  oozed  through  the  tobacco  fumes 
was  sickening.  Ever  since  she  could  remember,  certainly 
long  before  her  confirmation,  Lizzie  had  always  attended  mass 
with  her  mother  on  Sunday.  As  one  of  the  women  in  the 
exposive  red  robes  brushed  by,  shedding  her  thick  odors,  the 
sei'vice  and  all  it  meant  to  Lizzie  appeared  in  hideous  trans- 
formation. The  scene  was  the  devil's  altar,  and  these  women 
were  censers  of  the  incense  of  hell ! 

The  balancing  between  horror  and  vanity  of  sophistication 
was  still  undecided,  when  a  florid  woman,  in  wilted  evening 
dress,  and  bespangled  with  stones  which  Lizzie  was  too  agi- 
tated to  suspect,  swept  up  to  their  table  and  spoke  to  Buck  as 
though  he  had  forgotten  something  which  she  expected  of 
him. 

"The  fancy  dancing  will  begin  in  a  minute  on  the  next 
floor,  Mr.  Lyon." 

Lizzie  thought  nothing  could  be  worse  than  she  had  seen. 
There  might  be  a  chance  up  stairs  for  a  sweet  breath ;  and  peo- 
ple might  really  be  amusing  themselves.  Though  she  would 
have  felt  like  a  captive  bird  released  if  Buck  had  let  her  as- 
sume the  rest,  and  had  taken  her  home,  she  tried  more  bravely 
than  ever  to  conceal  from  him  that  she  was  hesitating.  And 
Buck  had  no  more  relentings  than  a  python.  When  he  coiled 
his  arm  around  her  waist,  and  felt  the  palpitations;  and  when 
her  breath  came  quicker  at  every  step,  as  he  pressed  her 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DEGENERATE 


closer;  all  the  pity  in  his  parched  little  heart  was  licked  up 
into  the  gloatings  he  had  kindled. 

The  scene  on  the  second  floor  was  not  only  not  a  relief  to 
Lizzie,  but  her  fluttering  senses  told  her  at  a  glance  that  it 
was  merely  a  repetition  of  the  first  act  below,  only  noisier  and 
bolder,  with  some  of  the  people  more  sated,  others  more  fever- 
ish and  greedy. 

Buck  found  two  chairs  and  pulling  them  a  little  distance 
from  the  rest  urged  Lizzie  into  one  of  them,  adding  assur- 
inglv,  "Hold  on  to  the  other  one,  Lizzie,  till  I  pay  the  next 
fiddler." 

The  bar-keep  in  butler's  attire  busy  at  the  sideboard  wasted 
no  time,  after  he  had  felt  the  bill  that  Buck  wadded  into  his 
hand  while  hurrying  a  few  words  in  a  low  tone  into  his  ear. 
Two  champagne  glasses  were  placed ;  something  from  a  small 
vial  w^as  dropped  into  one  of  them,  and  both  were  filled  with 
the  foaming  liquid. 

Returning  with  the  two  glasses,  and  playing  on  the  string 
that  he  had  never  found  out  of  tune,  Buck  put  the  treacherous 
drink  as  lightly  to  the  girl's  lips  as  though  it  had  been  water 
from  the  spring.  "We're  going  stale,  Lizzie.  This'll  perk  us 
up  a  lot,  and  we'll  feel  like  showing  'em  a  few  fancy  steps 
ourselves." 

Ice  cream  would  have  been  more  welcome  to  Lizzie;  but 
anything  cold  and  acid  promised  relief  from  the  hot  throb- 
bing terror.  She  followed  Buck's  lead  in  draining  her  glass, 
and  in  spite  of  a  pungent  after-taste  for  a  blessed  moment  she 
felt  restored  to  herself. 

Added  to  the  compound  which  she  had  drunk  before,  the 
heady  liquor  leaped  so  quickly  into  Lizzie's  brain  that  at  first 
it  more  than  verified  Buck's  prediction.  In  her  excitement 
Lizzie  lost  care  for  the  surroundings.  Her  body  seemed  so 
light  that  motion  was  easier  than  rest,  but  rhythm  was  neces- 
sary for  balance.  Spritishly  beckoning  Buck,  she  led  him  an 
elfish  chase  back  and  forth  through  the  rooms  filled  with 
jaded  revellers.  Her  laugh  was  so  careless,  and  her  motion  so 
graceful,  that  its  apparent  spirit  of  happiness  roused  the  dull 
company ;  and  she  set  the  pace  for  such  a  deceptive  imitation 
of  an  innocent  frolic  as  had  not  warmed  those  case-hardened 
walls  since  they  had  harbored  real  merriment  in  their  do- 
mestic days. 

400 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DEGENERATE 


Then  another  change  came.  The  ecstasy  in  Lizzie's  brain 
became  dizzy  and  drowsy.  She  sank  limp  into  a  chair.  Her 
head  rested  heavily  on  Back's  shoulder.  Presently  she  rose 
to  her  feet  again,  clutching  at  her  throat,  gasping,  trying  to 
resist  the  lethargy,  then  throwing  herself  into  Buck's  arms 
and  pleading  for  air. 

He  led  her,  almost  carried  her,  along  a  corridor.  They  en- 
tered the  first  unoccupied  room,  and  the  door  closed  behind 
them. 

Kid  Granniss,  with  Tom  Sears  and  Bud  Owton,  had  been 
trying  for  more  than  an  hour  to  amuse  themselves  with  the 
remnant  of  the  soiled  collection.  The  thrumbing  and  the 
blare,  the  vacant  laughter  and  the  joyless  songs,  the  repulsive 
enticings,  and  the  bleary  caressings  for  the  first  time  affected 
even  The  Kid  like  a  view  of  the  spectacle  from  the  back  of  the 
stage.  The  other  boys  were  neither  so  new  to  these  sights  nor 
so  calloused  that  the  tawdry  marketings  could  impose  upon 
them  in  their  present  state  of  mind.  The  night  had  not  only 
been  enlivened  by  the  unusual  episode,  but  it  was  keeping  up 
everyone's  curiosity.  The  boys  easily  learned  the  story,  and 
they  were  rational  enough  to  be  uneasy  that  the  affair  had 
gone  so  far,  and  to  be  anxious  about  consequences. 

At  last  Buck  appeared,  his  face  showing  so  ashen  against 
the  murky  background  that,  if  they  could,  the  boys  would 
have  dodged  hearing  its  meaning  in  words.  He  motioned 
them  into  an  alcove,  pulled  their  heads  together,  and  hissed 
out  his  confession.  "Great  God!  fellers,  she's  dead!  and 
hell's  to  pay!" 

The  one  credit  to  the  orgy  was  the  birth  of  a  currish  sense 
of  accountability.  Buck  had  been  so  cowed  by  the  effects  of 
his  crime  that  he  had  not  dared  to  send  for  help  till  he  was 
convinced  of  the  worst.  Then  his  instinct  of  self-preservation 
threw  all  his  cunning  into  circuit.  He  issued  his  orders  like 
a  brigand  at  bay:  ''Stand  by  me.  Kid,  to  quiet  Madam. 
'Phone  for  John  at  Satterlee's,  Tom,  and  stay  with  the  horses 
till  he  brings  her  down.  Come  up  with  him,  Bud ;  then  all 
hike  before  the  cops  are  on !" 

The  brief  council  had  hardly  closed,  before  the  house  had 
sensed  the  danger.  The  jangling  noises  seemed  to  have  set- 
tled sullenly  into  a  choke-damp.  Lights  were  turned  down, 
and  all  the  sounds  that  remained  were  spooky  whispers,  and 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    DEGENERATE 


the  swish  of  women's  garments,  and  stealthy  dispersals,  like 
the  scurryings  of  guilty  ghosts. 

Blank  featured,  according  to  the  coirectest  canons  of  his 
profession ;  resolute  with  almost  canine  fidelity  to  its  tradi- 
tion, "Right  or  wrong,  my  people!"  John  Cassidy  stalked 
through  the  deserted  halls  no  more  stalwart  in  body  than  in 
his  contempt  for  the  smudge  which  his  duty  called  him  to 
enter.  He  was  under  the  impression  that  Buck  had  been 
taken  ill.  He  charged  all  to  the  keeper  of  the  resort.  If  he 
had  been  pretender  enough  to  remove  his  hat,  an  unruly 
contraction  of  his  brows  would  have  betrayed  his  rugged  in- 
ward revolt  against  the  dubious  law  that  a  man  may  never  lay 
violent  hands  upon  a  woman. 

At  sight  of  Buck  in  the  corridor,  opposite  an  open  door, 
Ca.ssidy  curbed  his  surprise,  and  impassively  took  the  order, 
interpreted  by  a  gesture  pointing  into  the  room,  "We  must 
get  her  to  Kenwood  quick ;"  but  as  Buck  added  the  address, 
Cassidy  recoiled  and  staggered  as  from  touch  of  a  live  wire. 
He  took  a  step  or  two  into  the  room,  then  turned  wild-eyed  to 
Buck,  and  stood  stammering  incoherent  sounds  that  he  was 
e^'idently  trjang  to  form  into  an  exclamation. 

"What  are  you  blithering  about,  John?"  demanded  Buck, 
nervously.  "This  is  no  time  to  be  womanish.  Get  busy  and 
have  this  thing  over  with  in  a  hurrj^ !" 

Cassidy  was  trembling  as  a  strong  man  trembles  when  there 
is  nothing  more  to  lose,  and  no  way  to  make  a  fight  with  fate. 
Buck  supposed  it  was  cowardice,  and  he  sneered  spitefully; 
but  another  tract  in  his  moral  sense  began  to  function  when 
he  felt  himself  in  Cassidy's  strangling  grasp,  shaken  like  a 
puppy  by  an  angered  mastiff,  and  when  another  dimension 
of  his  liability  dawned  on  him  through  the  shrill  cry,  "It's 
our  Lizzie !    It's  our  Lizzie !" 

Then  sound  and  motion  ceased  in  the  stupefied  group,  as 
the  father  released  the  whimpering  culprit  and  again  turned 
into  the  room,  softly  approaching  for  a  nearer  look  at  the 
rigid  face.  The  seconds  took  so  long  in  passing  that  Buck's 
unchastened  impatience  conjured  the  heartless  fancy  of  Cas- 
sidy petrifying,  as  he  bent  over  his  child. 

With  a  groan  that  would  have  pierced  more  impenetrable 
consciences  than  those  in  the  awed  circle,  the  stricken  man 
fell  to  his  knees,  and  clutching  at  the  edge  of  the  coverings 
that  had  been  throwTi  over  the  victim,  buried  his  face  in  them, 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    DEGENERATE 


while  convulsive  waves  coursed  through  his  body,  until  his 
turbulent  feelings  found  utterance  in  the  prayer  that  seemed 
to  be  echoed  from  the  depths,  "Holy  Mother  of  God!  Blessed 

Mary!    Pity!     Pity!    Pity !" 

The  last  appeal,  sustained  as  inarticulate  tone,  died  away 
in  a  hoarse  guttural  sigh,  that  was  followed  by  a  torrent  of 
sobs. 

If  the  prayer  was  answered  on  the  spot,  it  was  in  giving 
back  strength  for  what  remained.  The  grief  was  so  elemental, 
and  so  eloquent,  that  even  the  unfeeling  haste  of  the  on- 
lookers did  not  dare  to  interrupt  it. 

When  the  storm  had  passed,  the  mourner  raised  his  head 
for  a  moment  and  scanned  the  figure  before  him,,  as  though 
making  sure  that  he  was  not  waking  from  an  awful  dream. 
Then  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  straightening  himself  stood  plan- 
ning. He  seemed  to  have  forgotten  that  he  was  not  alone.  A 
white  covering  had  been  turned  back  from  the  bed.  Gently 
swathing  the  form  of  his  child  in  it,  and  gathering  the  bur- 
den in  his  arms  as  though  it  had  been  an  infant  in  swaddling 
clothes,  he  walked  firmly  to  the  street  and  entered  the 
Brougham. 

As  Buck  stood  uneasily  at  the  carriage  door,  the  father 
simply  commanded,  "Drive  to  the  mother!" 

The  unexpected  eleventh  hour  turn  of  the  debate  had  so 
stimulated  Logan  Lyon  that  he  could  not  dismiss  it  until  he 
had  reviewed  the  whole  case,  and  had  made  memoranda  of 
points  that  would  require  the  most  argument  with  the  direc- 
tors. Then  he  dropped  asleep  in  his  chair,  and  at  the  tele- 
phone call  his  first  notion  was  that  Halleck  was  still  wrench- 
ing his  hand.  He  made  sure  that  his  father's  door  was 
closed,  then  took  down  the  receiver. 

Buck  locked  up  on  a  murder  charge ! 

Logan  Lyon  had  never  felt  at  liberty  to  express  opinions 
about  the  parental  policy  toward  his  half-brother.  But  all 
that  was  past.  His  loyalty  to  his  father  was  now  on  duty,  to 
break  the  force  of  the  blow. 

The  chauffeur  had  been  sleeping  on  his  arms  for  weeks,  and 
the  car  was  promptly  at  the  door.  Then  came  beating  the 
speed  limit  to  the  station ;  the  few  decisive  words  with  the 
Lieutenant  and  with  Buck,  showing  that  more  time  there 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     DEGENERATE 


would  be  wasted ;  the  round  of  the  city  editors  of  the  morning 
l^apei-!? — the  mail  editions  were  already  off — insurino;  from 
all.  with  possibly  one  exception,  handling  of  the  story  with 
justice  to  the  public  tempered  by  mercy  to  the  parents;  then 
the  last  slender  thread  of  hope — hope  not  to  remove  the  guilt, 
but  to  tind  its  consequences  in  dilfercnt  form ;  hope  not  to 
undo  the  tragedy,  but  to  have  the  boon  of  meeting  some  of 
its  after  effects  with  a  fighting  chance ;  hope  w'hich  the  doc- 
tors must  measure ;  there  was  the  assembling  of  the  physicians, 
the  torturing  waiting,  and  at  last  the  report. 

Buck  Lvon  had  not  taken  Lizzie  Cassidy's  life,  he  had  only 
—blasted  it ! 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE   BROADER   DEMOCRACY 


THE  BROADER  DEMOCRACY 


XXV 
THE  BROADER  DEMOCRACY 

"My  first  principle  is  that  it  is  the  chief  duty  of  the  Company 
to  adopt  the  policy  which  will  do  most  towards  enabling 
each  one  of  its  workers  to  make  the  most  of  his  life." 


TO  the  group  at  The  Lodge  it  seemed  as  though  the  period 
since  their  gathering  a  week  before  reached  back  an  era. 

The  change  that  had  come  over  their  outlook  was  thus  far 
so  undefined  that  they  had  hardly  gone  beyond  expressing  it 
to  themselves  in  terms  of  time. 

Knowledge  of  Buck's  transition  from  spoiled  child  to 
social  problem  had  been  kept  from  Mrs.  Lyon  until  Edith  and 
Hester  reached  the  Lake  on  a  special  train,  that  left  the  city 
after  Logan  had  assigned  them  their  parts  in  the  emergency 
measures.  Edgerly  had  kept  them  supplied  by  long  distance 
with  every  detail  which  could  be  of  use  in  their  ministrations. 

On  Sunday  morning  it  was  evident  that  the  parents  wanted 
to  be  alone. 

Logan  reminded  Hester  of  her  outstanding  plan  to  make 
the  circuit  of  the  Lake  by  the  ''fisherman's  path;"  and  in  fif- 
teen minutes  she  was  ready  for  the  start. 

If  Edgerly  had  been  within  hearing  distance  during  the 
first  hour  or  so,  he  might  have  found  himself  casting  about  for 
additions  to  the  rubrics  under  which  he  had  once  attempted 
to  classify  Hester. 

She  struck  into  the  narrow  foot-way  and  set  the  pace  for  a 
mile  or  two,  as  though  she  were  in  training  and  this  were  a 
Marathon  race. 

Lyon  trailed  behind,  easily  holding  the  speed,  though  walk- 
ing had  always  been  too  much  of  a  time-consumer  for  him  to 
afford  the  luxury  as  an  exercise ;  but  he  amused  himself  with 
guesses  about  the  distance  they  would  cover  before  Hester 
would  drop  to  a  slower  stroke. 

Then  not  so  much  a  physical  reaction  as  a  change  of  mind 
started  Hester  botanizing  and  ornithologizing.  Lyon  couldn't 
decide  whether  the  fusillade  of  questions  she  turned  upon  him 
was  result  of  knowing  nothing  or  everything  about  the  plants 
and  birds  of  the  region ;  but  he  reflected  that  if  he  had  a  law 

407 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


case  which  would  turn  upon  his  ability  in  this  line  of  cross- 
examination,  he  wouldn't  know  how  to  load  himself  to  fire 
her  style  of  questions.  He  didn't  see  how  she  could  go  into  the 
items  more  thoroughly  if  she  had  been  under  contract  to  fur- 
nish labels  for  the  National  Museum ;  and  he  wondered  how 
much  more  she  could  do  in  Spring,  before  the  witherings  and 
the  migrations. 

Without  warning,  this  scientific  zeal  passed  into  the  pranks 
of  a  vaudeville  girl  on  an  outing.  Coming  to  a  broader  stretch 
of  path,  Hester  challenged  Logan  to  a  hundred  yard  dash. 
She  tried  skipping  stones  along  the  placid  surface  of  the  water. 
She  made  a  swing  of  a  low  hanging  limb.  She  chattered  and 
acted  a  medley  of  scraps,  from  the  farce  comedy  to  the  Greek 
tragedy  level;  and  in  spaces  sufficiently  remote  from  the 
houses  she  ran  over  a  parallel  gamut  of  musical  scatterings,  in 
a  voice  strong  enough  for  grand  opera. 

It  was  no  more  certain  that  Hester  was  of  typical  nerv^ous 
temperament  than  that  she  was  not  neurotic.  This  volatility 
was  not  pathological.  It  was  not  even  mildly  hysterical.  It 
was  as  natural  as  a  lark's  flight  or  song,  and  as  wholesome  in 
its  place  as  her  woman's  broodings,  with  Edith,  over  the  af- 
flicted mother. 

This  strain  in  Hester's  composition  had  been  in  retirement 
most  of  the  time  since  her  father's  death.  While  its  liberty 
this  morning  was  spontaneous,  it  was  not  entirely  emotional. 
It  was  in  part  an  intelligent  and  purposeful  putting  of  the 
circumstances  to  their  best  use.  Logan's  pet  name,  "Gypsy," 
fairly  fitted  Hester  in  the  daj^s  when  she  was  an  avid  little 
child  of  nature.  Ever  since  she  had  been  old  enough  to  read 
about  them  she  had  avowed  affection  for  ]\Iignon,  and  envy 
for  the  maid  of  the  Lorelei.  She  had  thrown  herself  into  this 
romp,  in  a  time  and  place  that  seemed  made  for  it,  just  as  she 
would  have  taken  a  plunge  in  the  surf  of  the  Lido. 

Not  that  Hester  went  through  a  deliberate  course  of  reason- 
ing, any  more  than  she  did  when  she  sprinkled  salt  on  her 
butter.  In  either  case  she  could  have  accounted  for  her  rea- 
sons easily  enough,  if  obliged  to  testify.  She  not  only  felt 
the  need  of  relaxing  after  the  months  of  anxiety,  wath  the 
climax  of  the  last  few  hours,  but  she  knew  it  would  freshen 
her  for  the  more  taxing  decisions  which  could  not  be  long 
deferred. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


It  would  have  been  less  easy  for  Hester  to  tell  how  much 
her  outburst  had  been  for  Logan's  benefit  rather  than  her  own. 
Until  the  two  days  just  past,  she  had  never  been  in  a  position 
to  see,  as  Mr.  Lyon  himself  probably  did  not  realize,  how  jeal- 
ously Logan  was  a  guardian  for  his  father.  This  glimpse  into 
the  care  of  the  younger  man  for  the  older  gave  her  a  new 
view  of  the  burden  Logan  was  carrying ;  but  she  was  not  aware 
of  the  charge  on  his  loyalty  in  the  problem  of  bearing  his 
double  load  with  his  strength  divided  against  itself.  She 
merely  felt  as  sane  appreciation  of  a  little  out-door  play  for 
him  as  for  herself. 

That  the  ebullition  was  under  complete  control  of  judgment 
was  plain  in  Hester's  next  lead.  She  accepted  the  invitation 
of  a  rustic  bench  as  shamelessly  as  though  she  had  made  no 
athletic  pretensions;  and  as  self-possessed  as  in  her  most  quiet 
moods,  she  spoiled  Logan's  preparations  for  making  fun  of 
her  early  need  of  rest : — 

''Spare  yourself  the  trouble  of  laughing  at  me,  Mr.  Know- 
It-Better,"  she  murmured,  with  her  head  bolstered  against  the 
high  back  of  the  bench,  and  her  eyes  closed  as  though  she  were 
settling  herself  for  a  siesta.  ''I'm  tired,  and  I  glory  in  it.  A 
before-breakfast  gallop  would  be  the  only  dangerous  com- 
petitor. And  you  can't  even  make  me  quarrel  wdth  you  for 
thinking  I  won't  last  to  the  end  of  the  course.  I'm  not  too 
sure  of  it  myself.  What  is  it  they  say  at  the  track?  'Too 
skittish  for  a  good  getaway?'  But  it  was  sport  for  sport's  sake, 
and  aren't  we  having  it?  If  it  has  toned  you  up  as  much  as 
it  has  me,  you  are  as  ready  to  tell  me  the  latest  about  the  strike 
as  I  am  to  listen.  Things  can't  have  stood  still  a  whole 
week?" 

Then  Lyon  recited  the  story  of  the  Casino  conference.  He 
not  onl}^  told  the  result,  but  he  detailed  the  conversation.  His 
account  would  have  compared  favorably  with  an  expert  steno- 
graphic report,  except  that  he  dramatized  it  here  and  there, 
and  not  at  all  to  Graham's  prejudice. 

Hester  had  kept  her  eyes  closed  during  most  of  the  repeti- 
tion ;  but  without  mo\Tng  her  head  she  opened  them  full  on 
Lyon  when  he  stopped  speaking,  and  their  look  left  him  no 
need  to  be  told  that  she  was  brimming  over  with  exultation. 

"Logan !"  she  reproved ;  "you  haven't  told  which  of  the 
three  called  for  the  Nunc  Dimittis!" 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


"Whatever  his  freedom  as  chronicler,  Lyon  was  not  taking 
liberties  with  his  liabilities  as  attorney;  and  he  dutifully  drew 
the  line.  ''No  such  infringement  on  the  poetic  license  con- 
cession !  When  the  Muse  of  History  writes  it  up  a  thousand 
years  from  now,  I  hope  that  sort  of  garnishment  will  match. 
Truth  compelled  me  to  stop,  however,  just  before  I  should 
have  been  obliged  to  depose  that  after  they  had  come  down 
from  their  Mount  of  Transfiguration  one  of  the  three  at  least 
went  to  sleep  to  the  lullaby,  'The  King  of  France,  with  twice 
ten  thousand  men.'  " 

"You  can't  mean,"  searched  Hester,  bending  toward  him 
until  her  arm  had  to  prop  her  unstable  position  upon  a  bar  of 
the  seat  between  them  ;  "You  can't  mean  that  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  reject  this  splendid  compromise?" 

"Seriously,  Hester,"  concluded  Lyon,  "while  I'm  with  the 
plan  for  all  I'm  worth,  as  far  as  argument  goes,  in  my  opinion 
the  only  chance  in  the  world  that  our  directors  will  accept 
such  a  proposition  is  in  the  greater  fear  they  may  have  of  the 
New  Jersey  syndicate  than  of  the  strikers." 

"Then  I  must  walk  some  more  to  find  myself,"  was  Hes- 
ter's stupefied  reaction. 

This  time  they  started  off  side  by  side,  like  a  pair  of  reliable 
roadsters.  Neither  spoke  for  some  distance,  but  Hester's  mind 
was  at  work,  and  she  showed  her  progress  from  thinking  to- 
ward doing  when  after  a  little  she  a.sked  abruptly,  "How 
much  do  I  count  in  the  Company,  Logan?" 

"On  a  stock  vote,"  Lyon  replied,  in  a  strictly  professional 
tone,  "if  you  should  go  against  the  Lyon  interests,  enough 
smaller  holders  would  probably  be  with  you  to  beat  us." 

It  was  not  slow  thinking  that  retarded  Hester's  answer.  It 
was  one  of  her  habits  to  project  her  thought,  and  to  see  how  it 
would  look  under  the  make-believe  that  it  had  nothing  to  do 
with  herself.  This  time,  halting,  she  used  Lyon's  eyes  as  a 
reflector;  and  she  tried  every  angle  of  lieht  on  the  picture  of 
herself  acting  unfilially  toward  her  guardian. 

Hester  was  not  of  those  chilled  souls  whose  pride  of  ab- 
straction hushes  their  heart  beats.  The  sort  of  idealism  which 
starts  its  building  of  more  stately  social  mansions  on  the  debris 
of  violated  personal  ties  did  not  stimulate  her  sense  of  plausi- 
bility   

"You  know  I  couldn't,  Logan !  Who  was  the  old  Roman 
that  condemned  his  son  to  death,  that  has  been  passed  along 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


ill  the  school  books  as  one  of  the  heroic  types  we  ought  to 
live  back  to?  I  have  always  been  grateful  that  I  didn't  ad- 
mire him.  Within  the  past  forty-eight  hours  I  have  found  I 
could  imagine  the  necessity  of  telling  my  own  son  he  deserved 
the  death  penalty ;  and  I  might  even  feel  bound  to  confess  it 

in  public;  but  when  it  came  to  passing  sentence  myself 

No!  The  scheme  of  things  would  have  to  excuse  me,  and 
make  other  arrangements!" 

They  tramped  another  stage  in  silence,  and  almost  equally 
oppressed  by  a  feeling  of  bafflement. 

When  Hester  spoke  again  she  seemed  to  be  verifying  her 
vision  by  a  retrospect  over  the  whole  theoretical  tour  of  in- 
spection of  which  Lyon  had  heard  a  few  fragments 

"The  more  I  think  about  property  laws,  Logan,  and  es- 
pecially inheritance  laws,  the  thing  that  impresses  me  most  is 
that  they  are  society's  inventions  for  artificial  selection  of  its 
gardeners,  and  housekeepers  and  butlers.  If  this  artificial 
method  proves  to  breed  too  many  gardeners  w^ho  huxter  off 
the  vegetables  on  their  own  account,  and  housekeepers  who 
play  bridge  when  they  should  be  getting  the  meals,  and  but- 
lers who  steal  the  family  spoons  and  sell  them  for  drinks,  the 
method  is  bad ;  and  enlightened  self-interest  will  surely  make 
society  change  it  for  a  better." 

Then  she  dropped  into  a  brown  study  for  a  moment,  and 
seemed  to  be  picking  her  way  with  each  word,  as  she  followed 
out  the  figure. 

"We  hear  sometimes  of  old  house  servants,  who  have  had 
things  their  own  way  so  long  that  at  last  the  family  must 
choose  between  discharging  them  and  acknowledging  them 
as  masters.  Could  the  cartoonists  make  that  kind  of  a  public 
servant  out  of  Uncle  David?" 

Logan  Lyon  was  prepared  to  admit  to  the  directors  that  the 
scheme  to  which  he  was  a  recent  convert  owed  its  availability 
to  pure  accident.  Standing  on  its  merits,  in  ordinary  times, 
it  would  be  a  quarter  section  in  Utopia.  With  the  beneficent 
aid  of  that  compulsion  which  has  made  such  a  brilliant  his- 
toric record  transmuting  men's  necessities  into  their  virtues, 
Lyon  believed  the  Avery  Company,  although  convinced 
against  its  will,  and  in  spite  of  itself  and  a  cold  world,  might 
prove  that  business  may  be  done  on  that  plane.  He  was  not 
prepared  to  believe  that  his  father  could  not  adapt  himself  to 
the  new  situation. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


Indoed  the  one  remnant  of  mysticism  which  Logan  al- 
lowed to  interfere  with  his  strictly  matter-of-fact  analysis  of 
the  Avery  bnsiness  was  the  palliating  fiction  that  his  father 
was  the  Company's  agent,  instead  of  its  will.  lie  flinched 
from  identifying  the  Company's  policy  with  his  father's  per- 
sonality. It  wonld  not  have  been  easy  to  deceive  him  about 
the  actual  state  of  affairs  in  another  corporation ;  but  when- 
ever he  had  to  reflect  upon  his  father's  moral  relation  to  the 
Avery  policy  he  reverted  to  the  conception  that  the  President 
was  merely  the  executive  of  a  controlling  corporate  conscious- 
ness. Accordingly  he  could  not  admit  to  Hester,  nor  even  to 
himself,  that  her  suggestion  was  fair.  He  cogitated  so  ab- 
stractedly that  Hester  was  wondering  whether  he  would  come 
back  to  her  query  at  all ;  but  he  presently  passed  from  silent 
to  audible  meditation  in  speaking  out  the  substitute  he  had 
pictured : — 

"After  the  manager  had  brought  the  land  under  cultivation 
and  had  it  yielding  a  high  rate  of  return,  it  would  have  to  be 
a  cranky  lot  of  owners  that  would  want  to  interfere  with  him 
for  calling  a  halt  on  the  help,  if  he  believed  they  were  turning 
the  farm  over  to  weeds." 

Hester  knew  that  the  son's  allegiance  to  the  father  was  at 
present  so  loyally  enlisted  that  argument  involving  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Company  would  be  lost  on  Logan.  Her  instinct 
was  keener  though  than  his  that,  entirely  apart  from  the 
merits  of  the  strike,  the  outrage  which  now  attainted  the 
Lyon  name  had  put  the  whole  family  estimate  of  moral  values 
on  trial.  Her  loathing  for  the  particular  deed  in  which 
Buck's  foulness  had  betrayed  itself  was  no  more  genuine  than 
Logan's ;  but  he  had  thought  of  it  so  far  only  as  it  affected 
the  individuals  directly  concerned.  He  had  not  connected 
it  with  business,  nor  with  social  standards  in  general. 

To  Hester  there  seemed  no  room  for  question  that  the  fam- 
ily must  put  itself  right  by  making  its  future  sacramental.  It 
was  equally  clear  to  her  that  the  Avery  Company  was  com- 
promised, and  that  only  some  higher  social  compact  could  be 
its  vindication.  With  this  in  mind  she  was  assuming  that 
Mr.  Lyon  would  take  the  same  view ;  and  not  referring  par- 
ticularly to  the  compromise,  but  to  the  whole  readjustment 
which  his  moral  standards  would  demand,  she  was  trying  to 
find  a  way  of  making  his  task  easier  when  she  ventured  the 
guarded  inquiry : — 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


"Do  you  think  anything  I  might  say  to  Uncle  David  would 
do  any  good,  Logan?" 

"Not  so  long  as  he  thinks  you  don't  know  the  difference 
between  seed  corn  and  thistle  blows,"  gruffly  answered  Lyon. 

His  peal  of  two  voices  was  growing  clangorous.  He  sus- 
pected that  he  was  not  holding  his  own  in  silencing  the  secret 
that  his  sympathies  were  with  his  father,  not  with  his  father's 
policies.  His  imagination  read  accusation  of  treason  in  Hes- 
ter's assumption  that  "do  any  good"  would  mean  the  same  to 
him  as  to  her.  If  overruled  by  his  superiors  he  could  fight 
against  his  judgment;  but  he  had  no  rules  to  go  by  when  he 
found  himself  maintaining  one  horn  of  a  moral  dilemma  and 
believing  in  the  other.  Lyon  was  not  the  sort  of  man  to  sulk 
in  his  tent  if  his  advice  were  not  followed  by  the  council  of 
war.  His  lubberly  reply,  in  perfunctory  defense  of  his 
father's  position,  was  the  self-conscious  actor's  overplaying 
his  part. 

The  meaning  of  Logan's  roughness  did  not  fully  appear 
to  Hester.  She  credited  it  not  to  a  conflict  with  divided  duty, 
but  to  overwrought  sympathy  with  his  father.  It  was  rather 
easy  too,  in  the  apartness  of  that  calm,  clear,  restful  atmos- 
phere, to  minimize  the  realness  and  the  nearness  of  the  labor 
conflict,  and  to  idealize  out  of  its  due  proportion  the  final  filial 
fidelity  which  took  on  firmness  as  the  stress  increased. 

They  had  reached  a  patch  of  lawn  convexing  like  a  stage 
down  toward  a  pier  which,  but  for  its  length,  might  have  been 
the  orchestra  leader's  platform.  At  one  wing  a  log,  from 
which  enough  of  a  great  branch  had  been  lopped  off  to  leave 
a  chair-shaped  seat,  and  canopied  with  thickly  woven  ever- 
green, might  have  been  set  as  Titania's  throne. 

As  she  merged  herself  into  the  coziness  of  the  retreat,  with 
no  more  preliminaries  than  if  it  had  been  a  scheduled  way- 
station,  and  as  Lyon  stretched  himself  on  the  close-cropped 
turf,  Hester  intended  to  dismiss  the  vexing  subject  by  intro- 
ducing a  character  study  in  the  question : — "If  his  interests 
didn't  cross  ours  at  all,  and  if  you  could  detach  him  entirely 
from  our  aft'airs,  what  would  you  think  of  Mr.  Graham  per- 
sonally, Logan?" 

The  answer  itself  did  not  surprise  Hester  so  much  as  the 
suddenness  with  which  it  seemed  to  be  shot  out  of  a  long 
loaded  chamber.  "What  nliould  I  think  of  a  man  that  spends 
the  income  from  his  capitalism  in  Idaho  subsidizing  a  turn- 

413 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


ing  of  capitalism  upside  down  in  Chicago?     Can  you  make 
those  two  things  pull  together?" 

"The  Boston  papers  abused  him  for  that,"  Hester  replied 
composedly,  "and  he  took  no  notice  of  them.  Channing  Hart- 
ley drew  his  side  out  of  him  though,  the  last  time  he  called  in 
Brookline.  Mr.  Graham  said  he  wouldn't  be  driven  into  any 
'see-me-go-up'  advertising  of  himself,  even  in  a  good  cause ;  but 
he  would  be  glad  to  pay  the  expenses  of  an  impartial  commis- 
sion to  investigate  his  Idaho  business,  and  report  on  its  bear- 
ings upon  the  labor  campaign.  Then  when  Channing  urged 
him  he  explained  that  he  was  actually  doing  in  Idaho  all  that 
he  knew  how  to  ask  any  capitalist  to  do  under  present  circum- 
stances. Indeed,  he  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  couldn't  ask 
all  capitalists  to  do  as  much  at  once,  because  many  hadn't 
the  help  who  would  meet  them  half  way,  and  a  thousand 
other  details  would  slow  down  the  pace  possible  at  many 
points.  He  had  taken  the  trouble  to  get  picked  men  into  his 
employ.  He  had  offered  a  better  scale  of  wages  than  any 
competitor  paid.  He  had  opened  up  the  books  of  the  business, 
and  under  formal  agreement  he  had  talked  its  affairs  through 
regularly  with  the  help,  as  freely  as  if  they  had  all  been  stock- 
holders. He  had  introduced  a  sickness,  accident  and  old-age 
insurance  system,  besides  committing  the  business  to  an  ex- 
panding plan  of  local  improvements.  He  had  credited  him- 
self personally  with  the  salary  which  his  grade  of  managerial 
work  commands  on  the  average  throughout  the  country,  plus 
the  same  percentage  of  premium  which  the  other  employees 
drew.  Over  and  above  all  this,  the  business  showed  a  sur- 
plus. Some  of  the  men  of  course  didn't  know  w^hen  they  were 
well  off,  and  demanded  a  pro  rata  division  of  the  whole  net 
income.  The  majority  heartily  supported  the  policy  of  turn- 
ing that  surplus  into  an  endowment,  to  spread  the  gospel  of 
democracy  till  all  the  business  of  the  country  should  adopt 
the  same  platform.  The  men  as  a  rule  accepted  Graham's 
argument  that  it  would  be  the  same  capitalism  they  professed 
to  hate,  if  they  should  grab  all  there  was  in  their  lucky 
chance.  He  called  on  them  to  meet  him  in  giving  up  some 
of  his  legal  rights  for  the  benefit  of  workers  in  general.  They 
had  not  only  done  so  much,  but  they  had  an  organization  of 
their  own  to  help  his  scheme  of  campaigning  and  education. 
One  of  Channing's  clients  has  interests  in  Idaho,  and  he  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  the  whole  story  of  the  Graham  en- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


terprises  there  would  talk  louder  on  the  economic  and  moral 
side  of  his  case  than  all  his  public  speeches." 

The  subject  seemed  to  have  exhausted  its  drawing  powers 
with  Lyon ;  and  conversation  lapsed  till  Hester  mischievously 
threw  out  the  more  provocative  hint: — "Would  it  be  very  un- 
expected to  you,  Logan,  if  Elsie  should  marry  Graham?" 

For  an  instant  the  question  seemed  to  have  made  no  im- 
pression. Then,  with  a  long  meaning  whistle,  Lyon  suddenly 
swung  himself  about  from  his  facing  the  Lake,  he  pivoted  his 
head  on  his  elbow,  he  pried  for  more  evidence  into  Hester's 
expression,  and  as  a  climax  he  exploded  the  accusing  re- 
joinder: "How  long  does  this  date  back  of  Kissinger's  leav- 
ing us?" 

"You're  making  a  wrong  connection,  Logan,"  was  Hester's 
quiet  denial.  "When  he  hears  it,  Mr.  Kissinger  will  be  more 
surprised  than  you  are.  Elsie  herself  doesn't  know  that  she 
knows  it's  decided ;  and  I  know  it  only  by  cooking  up  a  ragout 
of  odds  and  ends,  and  serving  it  with  a  little  faith  that  the 
awkward  old  world  can't  mess  everything  that  ought  to 
happen." 

But  there  were  other  close-at-hand  things  which  even  Hes- 
ter's intuitiveness  had  not  fathomed.  Not  a  few  far  less  pre- 
scient persons  had  often  allowed  themselves  to  indulge  a  some- 
what unrestricted  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  upon  one 
ought-to-be  which  had  never  so  much  as  cast  its  image  across 
her  imagination.  If  there  had  been  anything  untypical  in 
Hester's  commerce  with  life,  it  would  be  found  in  the  un- 
ashamed eagerness  with  which  her  virgin  fancy  had  consulted 
the  oracles.  She  had  never  affected  the  defensive  feminine 
fiction  of  unconcern  about  men ;  but  none  of  the  astrologers 
of  girlhood  had  pointed  out  a  way  which  promised  anything 
for  her  most  intimate  quest.  She  had  no  index  to  the  seizure 
of  Logan's  mind,  in  the  past  week,  by  the  feeling  that  all  the 
unavailables  he  had  ruled  out  of  his  practical  program  might 
easily  be  listed  in  the  day's  work,  if  he  could  have  the  help 
of  a  light  which  was  probably  beyond  his  reach.  She  did  not 
know  that  the  associating  of  Elsie's  name  with  Graham's  had 
affected  Logan  as  bringing  the  light  within  the  range  of  ap- 
propriation. She  saw  nothing  but  uninterest  in  a  promising 
romance,  and  summons  to  take  up  the  line  of  march,  when  he 
rose  and  stood  looking  down  at  her.     There  even  seemed  to 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


be  a  tlireatcning  quality  in  the  cloud  on  his  face,  which  made 
lier  think  the  load  of  the  family  troubles  was  settling  back  on 
liim  with  dulling  weight.  She  did  not  know  that  Logan  felt 
himself  hanging  on  the  decree  of  fate  whether  he  should  end 
among  the  inglorious  majority  of  the  overcome-of-the-world, 
or  should  win  his  spurs  as  a  fighter  for  ideals.  Her  self-com- 
mand would  have  had  to  bo  more  mechanical  than  it  was,  if 
she  could  have  controlled  every  mark  of  surprise  when  the 
most  highly  charged  words  she  had  ever  heard  seemed  to 
struggle  from  his  lips: — 

"Have  I  been  all  along  too  much  a  brother  to  you,  Hester, 
to  be  thinkable  in  a  closer  relation?" 

Lyon  had  to  wait  so  long  for  a  positive  sign,  that  he  suffered 
from  a  sense  of  having  committed  an  offense  against  nature. 

It  required  some  seconds  for  the  blur  in  Hester's  mind  to 
resolve  itself  into  accountable  impressions. 

All  the  scenery  seemed  to  have  been  instantly  shifted,  with 
no  change  in  the  stage  directions. 

The  first  coherent  association  which  Hester  could  make  out 
was  that  an  unrecognized  image  of  Logan  had  been  the  lay- 
figure  for  every  sketch  of  a  pattern  husband  she  had  ever 
drawn. 

From  her  earliest  recollections  he  seemed  to  have  been  cast 
for  such  a  matter-of-course  part  in  her  drama,  that  she  had 
never  been  aware  of  starting  wdth  an  inventory  of  his  traits 
as  the  working  nucleus  of  specifications  for  the  more  import- 
ant character. 

The  truth  came  into  sight  so  suddenly,  and  at  first  it 
amounted  to  such  a  probable  case  against  her  innocence 
through  years  of  composing  from  one  model,  that  Hester  was 
almost  abject  in  her  inability  to  persuade  herself  of  anything 
extenuating. 

Then,  as  her  steady  gaze  at  Logan  seemed  to  erase  physical 
Hues,  and  to  leave  the  spiritual  picture,  Hester  saw  a  partial 
explanation ;  and  she  spoke  so  gently  that  he  was  at  once  ab- 
solved of  his  self-accusation,  while  the  possibility  of  a  favora- 
ble decision  appeared  still  farther  removed.  "If  it  is  unthinka- 
ble, Logan,  it  is  not  because  you  are  too  much  brother,  but 
because  you  are  too  little  something  else." 

"The  worst  ls  the  kindest,  Hester;"  Logan  smiled  dismally. 
"Soothe  me  with  a  few  of  the  most  damaging  items  out  of  the 
roll  of  my  deficiencies." 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


Hester  was  farthest  from  trifling,  but  the  picture  flashed 
across  her  fancy  of  Logan  listed  on  the  Board  of  Trade,  and 
the  mothers  of  marriageable  Chicago  daughters  boosting  the 
quotations.  That  they  would  have  nothing  to  say  about  de- 
ficiencies, except  to  keep  the  price  from  going  beyond  their 
range,  was  however  not  wholly  a  matter  for  cynicism  ;  and  the 
scornful  turn  of  Hester's  thoughts  was  self-reproved  into  the 
reflection  that  the  only  deficiencies  she  had  found  in  Logan 
were  either  rather  microscopic  matters  of  taste,  or  they  were 
wholly  hypothetical. 

Yet  this  summary  did  not  explain  Hester  to  herself;  nor 
added  to  the  reason  which  Logan  suggested  did  it  account  for 
his  negative  place  in  her  estimate.  She  was  conscious  of  a 
blank  in  her  acquaintance  with  Logan,  but  since  the  ques- 
tion had  been  thrust  upon  her  she  could  not  tell  whether  this 
lack,  or  the  domestic  familiarity,  had  been  more  responsible 
for  keeping  him  out  of  her  thoughts  in  the  role  in  which  he 
was  now  presented. 

Hester's  artless  recurrence  to  Logan,  from  childhood  to  the 
present  moment,  for  the  groundwork  of  her  notion  of  a  man, 
put  her  in  a  self-contradictory  plight  in  her  own  eyes  when 
she  tried  to  show  cause  for  her  inability  to  focus  him  in  the 
new  perspective.  She  was  not  quite  sure  whether  she  was 
more  defending  herself  or  shielding  him  when  she  evaded  his 
demand  with  the  temporizing  modification:  "You  put  the 
word  'deficiencies'  into  the  case  Logan.  Would  that  be  the 
way  to  express  it,  if  I  had  never  thought  of  you  as  an  archi- 
tect or  a  physician  ?" 

"In  my  inexperience,"  Lyon  gruesomely  admitted,  "I  may 
not  have  used  the  precise  technical  language  of  examiners  for 
the  classified  civil  service!" 

The  laugh  that  they  had  to  share  was  humanizing;  and 
both  returned  to  the  subject  a  little  less  predisposed  to  behave 
absurdly.  They  were  no  longer  stilted,  and  even  the  facetious- 
ness  which  had  become  the  later  form  of  the  teasing  and  de- 
fense that  had  been  their  gradually  maturing  medium  of  in- 
tercourse since  Hester's  childhood,  would  not  ring  true  in 
their  present  temper. 

"If  the  values  of  the  unknown  quantities  made  you  out  the 
missing  term  in  my  life-formula,  Logan,  I  should  be  the  hap- 
piest girl  in  the  world,"  confided  Hester,  without  the  least 
constraint;  "but  you  do  not  realize  how  little  you  have  let  me 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


know  about  the  real  center  of  your  interests.  What  have  you 
ever  shown  me  about  your  business  aims,  to  give  me  any  hope 
that  we  could  work  for  the  same  ends?" 

''I  have  always  assumed,  Hester,"  fumbled  Lyon  in  genu- 
ine bewilderment,  "that  it  was  a  mitigating  circumstance  if  a 
seven-day-in-the-week  overtime-working  wage-laborer  in  a 
non-unionized  employment  didn't  make  his  friends  miserable 
between  whiles  with  his  worries.  It  may  be  unpardonable, 
but  whatever  else  I  may  have  had  to  be  ashamed  of  I  have 
always  rather  frankly  approved  of  myself  for  letting  my  work 
do  all  the  touting  of  my  good  intentions.  It's  a  pretty  hum- 
drum sort  of  merit,  in  spite  of  being  less  common  than  com- 
monplace; but  I  didn't  suppose  I  was  mistaken  in  my  idea 
that  you  gave  it  a  little  credit.  If  your  standard  of  a  man 
calls  for  a  type  that  spends  half  its  time  prcss-agenting  its 
doings  in  the  other  half,  of  course,  I  must  withdraw  my 
credentials." 

"You  know  I  think  you  are  splendid,  Logan,  for  these  same 
things,  and  lots  of  others,"  was  Hester's  impulsive  protest; 
but  do  you  not  see  that  we  are  strangers  from  the  very  point 
where  our  acquaintance  most  needs  to  begin?  A\Tiether  Mr. 
Graham  is  right  or  not  that  all  the  workers  in  the  Company, 
from  the  fuel  yard  to  the  directors'  room,  are  partners,  you 
and  I  cannot  help  being  partners  in  the  Avery  business.  There 
is  something  wrong  about  our  partnership,  and  it  must  run 
deep  into  the  business  itself,  if  I  am  left  out  of  its  affairs  that 
worry  you,  and  am  not  even  trusted  to  know  whether  you 
agree  with  your  father  that  my  seed  corn  is  his  thistle  blows." 

If  Hester  had  known  that  Logan  had  no  more  sincere  wish 
than  to  make  her  his  absolute  confidante  in  testing  his  busi- 
ness standards,  and  that  loyalty  to  his  professional  and  filial 
codes  was  hLs  sole  reason  for  not  following  his  inclination,  she 
would  have  been  more  certain  that  business  was  confusing 
life;  but  she  would  also  have  begun  to  see  possibilities  that 
Logan  might  find  his  vocation  in  helping  to  transform  the 
confusion  into  progress.  As  Logan  did  not  answer,  and  could 
not  without,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  betraying  a  double  trust, 
Hester  had  no  recourse  but  to  take  his  silence  as  confession, 
and  consequently  as  decision. 

She  felt  that  Logan  must  recognize  the  force  of  the  reason- 
ing, just  as  she  did,  when  she  tried  to  put  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter  in  another  form. 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


"If  you  had  found,  Logan,  that  the  rest  of  your  work  for 
Hfe  must  be  done  in  the  other  hemisphere,  would  your  near- 
est friend,  even  if  he  were  the  best  fellow  in  the  world,  be  the 
man  you  would  join  forces  with,  in  spite  of  his  having  no  use 
for  operations  beyond  the  boundaries  of  his  own  country?" 

Logan  had  no  doubt  about  Hester's  meaning,  nor  was  he 
sure  that  the  facts  which  she  did  not  know  would  alter  her 
opinion.  He  could  not  believe  however  that  his  motives,  even 
from  her  point  of  view,  were  as  incorrigible  as  she  imagined ; 
yet  the  utmost  liberty  that  he  felt  in  self-defense  was  mildly 
interrogative.  "Do  you  really  think,  Hester,  it  is  a  perfectly 
clear  case  that  our  worlds  lie  that  far  apart?" 

Not  distrust  of  her  forecast,  but  uncertainty  about  the  right 
way  to  represent  it,  made  Hester  knit  her  brows  and  puzzle 
like  a  backward  pupil  in  arithmetic.  After  she  had  worked 
off  some  of  the  unusable  stimulus  to  her  thoughts  by  scatter- 
ing, one  by  one,  the  wild  flowers  she  had  gathered,  the  conceit 
that  her  behaviour  must  seem  to  Logan  more  demented  than 
Ophelia  with  her  rosemary  and  rue  recalled  her  to  further  ex- 
planation. 

"If  nothing  more  difficult  than  oceans  were  between  us," 
she  qualified,  "we  might  understand  each  other  and  be  of 
mutual  assistance.  Since  it  is  ideas,  of  a  sort  that  have  no 
means  of  exchanging  traffic,  but  can  simply  come  into  colli- 
sion, the  only  safety  is  to  route  them  over  different  lines.  You 
and  Uncle  David  agree  with  me  on  the  fundamental  thing 
that  I  must  undertake  the  responsibility  of  opinions  about 
business.  Is  it  not  your  first  business  principle  that  your  duty 
to  the  Company  is  to  help  it  get  all  the  dividends  that  the 
laws  put  w^ithin  its  reach?  My  first  principle  is  that  it  is  the 
chief  duty  of  the  Company  to  adopt  the  policy  which  will  do 
most  towards  enabling  each  one  of  its  workers  to  make  the 
most  of  his  life.  Could  there  be  anything  better  than  mutual 
interference  between  persons  with  such  antagonistic  aims?" 

With  the  same  inquisitive  method,  Logan  demurred: — 
"Would  it  make  any  difference,  Hester,  if  I  should  tell  you 
that  I  didn't  know  it  till  lately,  but  I  have  accepted  your  prin- 
ciple, and  hold  it  as  candidly  as  you  do?" 

"It  would  make  this  difference,  Logan," — and  Hester  was 
hardly  more  surprised  by  the  admission  in  the  question  than 
by  the  readiness  of  her  own  reply ;  "I  should  have  to  suspend 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


judgment  until  you  had  told  me  whether  you  had  foreseen 
what  jHitting  your  hands  to  such  a  plow  means." 

"Tell  me  what  you  think  it  means,"  urged  Lyon. 

"Why!"  exclaimed  Hester,  with  a  sudden  exaltation  which 
might  befit  the  Jeanne  d'Arc  of  tradition;  "It  means  that  you 
would  have  to  be  a  motor  in  the  most  radical  revolution  I  have 
seen  any  mention  of  in  history.  It  means  that  you  would  do 
your  part  towards  freeing  the  world  from  the  blight  of  the 
consen'ative  conscience.  It  means  that  you  would  retire  the 
type  of  conscience  that  is  a  time  lock  closed  forever  at  some 
day  of  doom  in  the  past,  and  that  you  would  put  in  its  place 
a  time  lock  which  would  open  with  the  day's  work  of  every 
tomorrow.  It  means  that  you  would  put  the  property  con- 
science, and  the  propriety  conscience,  and  the  policy  con- 
science where  they  belong  in  the  department  of  etiquette,  and 
install  an  exploring  conscience  at  the  head  of  your  depart- 
ment of  justice." 

"But  if  I  acknowledged  that  you  have  only  put  more  pic- 
turesquely what  the  last  few  months  had  made  me  believe?" 
was  Logan's  corroborative  testimony. 

"Why  then,  Logan,"  decided  Hester,  in  the  eagerness  of 
the  momentary  triumph  of  her  intellect  at  the  expense  of  her 
affections,  "you  would  prove  your  sincerity  by  making  a 
martyr  of  yourself,  if  necessary,  to  force  the  compromise!" 

Logan's  failure  to  answer  at  once  meant  to  Hester  that  his 
new  creed  was  less  ready  for  duty  in  the  real  world  than  he 
supposed.  The  reliability  of  her  own  reasoning  was,  how- 
ever, immediately  thrown  under  doubt.  It  might  be,  after 
all,  that  she  needed  as  much  as  he  to  arrange  a  settlement  with 
reality.  The  pos.sibility  became  almost  a  conviction  when  she 
considered  the  question  in  w^hich  Logan  reconstrued  the  prob- 
lem : — "Haven't  you  set  up  a  more  Spartan  standard  for  me, 
Hester,  than  you  could  tolerate  a  moment  ago  for  people  with 
human  affections  ?  Can  you  demand  that  the  time  factor  and 
the  personal  factor  shall  have  nothing  to  say  about  my  mak- 
ing a  steam  hammer  of  myself,  when  you  deny  the  right  of 
the  scheme  of  things  to  turn  us  into  machines?" 

The  launch  had  just  rounded  into  sight.  It  had  been  or- 
dered to  follow  with  the  lunch  basket,  but  it  was  ahead  of  time 
and  place.    Its  signals  showed  that  it  was  intentionally  in  ad- 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    BROADER    DEMOCRACY 


vance  of  the  schedule,  and  was  trying  to  attract  attention. 
Logan  hurried  down  the  pier,  and  after  a  few  words  with  the 
skipper  he  beckoned  for  Hester  to  follow.  A  message  from 
Chicago  called  for  Lyon's  immediate  return  to  the  city. 

Hardly  a  word  was  exchanged  as  they  sat  through  the  short 
trip  on  the  little  hurricane  deck  over  the  wheelhouse.  Lyon 
was  reflecting  whether,  in  telling  Hester  everything,  he  had 
strained  his  allegiance  to  his  father  and  the  Company.  Hes- 
ter had  been  introduced  to  such  an  unsuspected  phase  of  Logan 
that  she  was  already  seeing  visions  of  what  they  might  ac- 
complish together,  if  their  purposes  proved  to  be  as  harmo- 
nious as  this  revelation  foreshadowed. 

Hester  drew  into  both  of  hers  the  hand  that  Logan  held  out 
to  balance  her  step  from  the  rail ;  and  she  held  it  while  her 
eyes  steadily  meeting  his  spoke  as  candidly  as  her  words: — 
''If  you  knew  how  much  I  want  to  be  persuaded,  Logan,  you 
couldn't  believe  I  am  hesitating!" 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE   OLD   ORDER   CHANGETH 


THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 


XXVI 
THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

'We  will  make  it  a  part  of  the  business  to  find  out  how  many 
instead  of  how  few  of  its  workers  may  have  a  property 
interest  and  a  shareholder's  voice  in  it." 


BARCLAY'S  trip  was  unexpected.  His  messages  sent  from 
the  train  had  not  been  delivered,  and  it  was  late  Sunday 
forenoon  when  he  got  a  long  distance  connection  with  The 
Lodge. 

Logan  Lyon  motored  across  to  the  main  line,  and  was  in 
the  city  for  an  evening's  conference  with  Barclay  after  they 
had  dined  at  the  Club. 

The  essential  addition  which  Barclay  brought  to  the  evi- 
dence in  hand  more  than  confimied  Graham's  prediction  about 
the  New  Jersey  syndicate. 

The  Company  must  start  up  at  full  capacity  in  less  than 
two  weeks,  or  the  odds  would  increase  every  day  against  its 
possible  recovery  of  a  fighting  position  in  the  market. 

As  David  Lyon  sat  at  his  desk  in  the  private  office  Monday 
morning,  he  was  outwardly  a  symbol  of  serenity,  and  strength 
and  assured  purpose. 

Hichborn  had  noticed  an  unusually  kindly  quality  in  his 
chief's  greeting,  and  had  inferred  that  the  week  had  begun 
with  more  favorable  indications. 

A  directors'  meeting  had  been  called  for  twelve  o'clock,  and 
Hichborn  assumed  that  the  President's  rapidity  in  disposing 
of  routine  matters  mean  that  he  wanted  to  be  free  for  consid- 
eration of  new  business  as  long  as  possible  before  that  hour. 

The  Secretary  could  not  understand,  however,  why  he  was 
displaced  this  morning,  in  his  ordinary  duties  with  Mr.  Lyon, 
by  his  son. 
"  Without  explanation,  Logan  Lyon  instructed  Hichborn  to 
give  him  the  necessary  pointers  on  the  items  which  called  for 
the  President's  decision,  and  he  carried  the  papers  to  and  from 
his  father's  room. 

To  one  not  committed  to  some  theory,  no  signs  would  have 
appeared  in  Mr.  Lyon's  demeanor  that  his  son's  thoughtful- 
ness  was  needed,  nor  that  it  was  appreciated. 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     OLD     ORDER    CHANGETH 


Although  Logan  was  in  doubt  on  neither  point,  not  even 
his  sympathetic  study  of  his  father's  character,  and  habitual 
watchfulness  of  his  needs,  had  given  him  the  means  of  pene- 
trating far  into  the  effects  of  the  latest  incidents  upon  the 
paternal  mind. 

Since  the  morning  of  Friday,  father  and  son  had  been 
chiefly  occupied  ^-ith  provisional  details.  Their  questions  had 
been.  What  is  to  be  done  next?  There  had  been  neither  time 
nor  desire  for  comment  and  expression  of  opinion.  Logan 
had  reported,  in  the  briefest  terms,  the  Casino  intendew,  and 
he  had  'phoned  the  bare  facts  brought  by  Barclay. 

With  his  desk  cleared  of  the  morning's  work,  Mr.  Lyon  put 
Hichborn  under  the  strictest  orders  against  interruption,  and 
motioned  Logan  to  a  chair. 

It  was  some  minutes  before  Mr.  Lyon  gave  a  clue  to  the  di- 
rection of  his  thoughts.  AVith  his  head  thrown  back,  and 
his  eyes  closed,  he  presented  the  picture  which  Logan  would 
most  naturally  recall  in  his  father's  absence.  It  was  his  ha- 
bitual attitude  when  collecting  his  thoughts.  As  Logan 
waited,  watching  his  father's  features  for  some  telltale  move- 
ment, not  a  shading  of  expression  gave  notice  of  the  specific 
qualities  of  thought  and  feeling  striving  for  mastery  in  the 
supreme  earnest  of  David  Lyon's  life. 

His  first  words  showed  less  emotion  than  he  had  often  ex- 
hibited in  asking  about  the  record  of  a  .superintendent.  "I 
understand  you  and  Barclay  to  think  we  must  decide  today 
between  withdrawal  in  favor  of  the  New  Jersey  people,  merger 
with  them  or  acceptance  of  Halleck's  memorandum?" 

"We  think  there  are  more  reasons  than  ever  for  ruling  out 
the  merger,"  Logan  cautiously  amended. 

Mr.  Lyon  took  from  his  pocket  the  notes  which  Logan  had 
handed  him  on  Friday.  "What  am  I  to  suppose  this  first 
clause  means,  Logan?  'The  Company  acknowledges  the  prin- 
ciple that  icork  in  its  employ  creates  an  equity  in  the 
business  f  " 

"In  ordinary  times,  and  as  a  statement  of  general  business 
ideas,  it  would  be  simply  a  rhetorical  flourish,"  Logan  frankly 
answered.  "In  our  case,  with  the  choice  between  abdication 
to  enemies,  and  accommodation  of  ourselves  to  a  some- 
what idealistic  arrangement  with  our  friends,  it  means  a 
pledge  to  experiment  with  an  idea  which  the  business  world 
at  large  will  call  Quixotic." 

426 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    OLD     ORDER    CHANGETH 


"Would  it  not  be  more  correct  to  say  experiment  with  words 
which  do  not  express  an  idea?"  was  Mr.  Lyon's  quiet  criti- 
cism. 

"Perhaps  the  words  suit  the  case  all  the  better,  Father,  be- 
cause they  contain  an  idea  without  fully  expressing  it.  I 
have  been  wishing  I  knew  more  about  history,  to  see  whether 
it  hasn't  been  the  rule  that  the  ideas  which  people  have  fol- 
lowed in  their  creative  eras  have  been  suggestive,  rather  than 
legally  precise;  more  like  pillars  of  fire  or  cloud  than  like 
literal  statutes.  Isn't  the  Golden  Rule  an  instance  of  that 
sort?  Are  we  through  learning  what  it  means,  when  we  try 
to  apply  it  in  new  circumstances?" 

"But  what  beginnings  of  an  idea  do  these  words  stand  for?" 
pursued  Mr.  Lyon.  His  manner  was  neither  intolerant  nor  ag- 
gressive. He  had  the  bearing  of  a  candid  inquirer,  yet  in 
every  word  Logan  recognized  his  father's  grief  that  their  af- 
fairs were  drifting,  as  he  believed,  into  an  uncharted  sea. 

"It  is  rather  hard  for  me.  Father,  to  be  the  mouthpiece  of  a 
faith  that  in  one  sense  has  been  stamped  on  me  by  force.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  the  stress  of  necessity,  I  might  never  have 
considered  it  practicable  for  the  Avery  Company  to  apply  the 
idea.  I  make  no  predictions  whether  it  will  take  generations 
or  centuries  for  the  idea  to  set  the  standard  for  business  in 
general.  I  am  simply  convinced  that  circumstances  have  put 
us  in  a  position  where  honest  experiment  with  the  idea  is  the 
only  practical  policy.  In  another  sense  belief  in  the  policy 
has  grown  up  in  me  from  the  inside.  You  were  shocked  at 
some  of  the  things  I  said  to  a  bunch  of  the  directors  last  Spring, 
the  day  of  the  strike  decision.  They  were  simply  sproutings 
that  I  didn't  know  the  meaning  of  myself;  but  this  war  has 
affected  me  as  wars  on  a  larger  scale  always  affect  the  ideas  of 
people.  Things  that  I  saw  in  a  haze  now  look  clear.  The 
idea  that  I  rated  as  too  abstract  and  refined  for  this  world  now 
seems  to  me  as  much  in  order  as  any  progressive  thought  that 
an  active  age  has  substituted  for  its  rule-of-thumb  notions.  If 
it  were  not  for  your  inability  to  accept  the  idea,  Father,  I 
could  vote  with  all  my  heart  for  pledging  the  Company  to  it, 
and  I  could  stake  my  life  on  it  with  the  zeal  of  a  new  convert." 

"But  you  have  not  yet  told  me  what  the  idea  is,"  reminded 
Mr.  Lyon. 

"Why,  it's  merely  carrying  one  step  farther  into  industry 
the  idea  which  we  have  been  working  amateurish  experiments 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     OLD     ORDER    CHANGETH 


with  in  politics.  It's  the  democratic  idea  admitted  to  one 
more  range  of  application.  As  it  appeals  to  me,  it  is  the  idea 
that  this  human  life  of  ours  is  men's  affairs.  That  is,  every 
time  the  race  as  a  whole,  or  some  picked  specialist  in  the  race, 
hits  on  a  new  value,  the  social  programme  thereupon  has  to 
hegin  to  make  room  for  the  new  details  of  the  problem : — 
first,  "What  place  belongs  to  this  new  value  in  the  whole  scale 
of  human  interests?  and  second.  How  may  we  open  the  fairest 
field  for  everv^  man  in  the  world  to  earn  his  way  toward  his 
share  of  this  new  value?  Not  to  go  off  too  far  into  theory, 
we  people  in  the  Avery  Company  are  all  men  together,  in  the 
sense  that  we  all  alike  want  to  get  all  the  values  of  life  we  can ; 
and  to  most  of  us  the  Company  is  the  principal  means  of  mak- 
ing headway  toward  the  purpose.  Now  having  some  prop- 
erty, and  having  some  of  the  right  to  an  opinion,  and  some 
of  the  influence  that  opinion  backed  by  a  little  property  ex- 
erts with  our  fellow  men,  are  among  the  values  that  most  men 
want.  They  need  them,  whether  they  know  enough  to  want 
them  or  not,  in  order  to  be  in  the  line  of  making  the  most  of 
life.  Adding  by  one's  owm  efforts  something  necessary  to  the 
processes  of  life,  is  the  only  title  to  property  and  influence  that 
the  logic  of  life  can  in  the  long  run  recognize.  We  are  oper- 
ating a  property  system  w^hich  already  looks  to  me,  and  I  be- 
lieve it  will  some  day  look  to  evers^body,  as  primitive  as  the  old 
cable  cars  now  look  to  Chicago  people,  in  contrast  with  electric 
equipment.  The  strike  has  turned  the  spot-light  on  this 
property  system  with  the  Avery  Company  as  the  illustration. 
We  have  several  thousand  employees  who,  in  the  aggregate, 
are  as  necessary  to  the  Company'  as  its  capital.  The 
business  is  those  men's  means  of  leading  a  man's  life,  and 
filling  out  a  man's  destiny.  But  there  are  men  who  own  a 
share  apiece  of  the  Company's  stock,  to  whom  the  law  gives 
more  right  to  say  their  say,  and  influence  the  Company's 
policy,  than  those  thousands  who  have  put  their  whole  labor 
time  for  years  into  the  service  of  the  corporation.  Now  the 
democratic  idea  is  that  business  is  a  product  of  all  the  work- 
ers, and  that  the  legal  status  of  all  the  workers  should  corre- 
spond with  their  share  in  creating  and  maintaining  the  busi- 
ness. It  implies  that  there  should  be  a  corporate  policy  and  a 
due  process  of  law,  without  which  no  worker  in  the  business 
could  be  put  out  of  his  job  nor  deprived  of  the  voice  in  the 
business  that  belongs  with  the  job,  any  more  than  the  owner 

428 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


THE    OLD    ORDER    CHANGETH 


of  a  share  of  stock  could  be  deprived  of  his  stock  and  his  vote. 
If  I  were  authorized  to  put  a  meaning  into  that  first  clause,  it 
would  start  this  way :  'We  will  make  it  a  part  of  the  business 
to  find  out  how  many  instead  of  how  few  of  its  workers  may 
have  a  property  interest  and  a  shareholder's  voice  in  it,  and 
also  how  the  distribution  of  this  property  and  influence  may 
be  made  proportional  with  each  man's  service  to  the 
corporation.'  " 

"Is  there  anything  to  distinguish  that  from  communism?" 
and  Mr.  Lyon's  manner  indicated  anxiety  more  than  oppo- 
sition. 

"I'm  not  sure  that  I  know  what  communism  is,"  Logan 
answered  cautiously;  "but  if  it  is  a  scheme  to  distribute  eco- 
nomic goods  on  any  basis  except  the  proportional  value  of 
service  rendered,  it  is  the  precise  opposite  of  the  type  of  de- 
mocracy this  memorandum  contemplates.  The  most  vital 
thing  in  Graham's  idea  of  democracy,  and  I  think  he  is  right 
about  it,  is  that  it  must  work  out  a  way  for  every  member  of 
society  to  count  at  his  full  manhood  value  in  every  part  of 
life  in  which  he  is  interested.  Of  course  our  property  system 
as  it  stands  represents  more  than  anything  else  the  relative 
fighting  force  of  different  economic  strata.  The  farther  we 
go  toward  making  reason  instead  of  force  the  legislature  of  the 
w^orld,  the  more  we  shall  see  that  our  present  laws  of  property 
tend  to  establish  a  capitalistic  oligarchy  always  growing  into 
a  hierarchy  with  a  diminishing  number  of  individuals  at  the 
head.  This  oligarchy  is  gaining  cumulative  power  by  oper- 
ating an  ingenious  system  of  laws  based  on  the  fallacy  of  the 
paramount  rights  of  capitalistic  interests.  As  we  recover  our 
sanity  about  the  scale  of  human  values,  we  shall  see  that  the 
system  is  no  longer  the  best  for  keeping  human  achievements 
at  their  highest  level,  any  more  than  rubbing  two  sticks  to- 
gether is  the  best  method  of  getting  fire.  Whatever  may  be 
the  value  of  the  hierarchy  of  capital  in  economizing  produc- 
tion, it  is  probably  offset  by  its  arrest  of  fairness  in  distribu- 
tion. Even  if  the  hierarchy  permitted  distributive  justice,  all 
the  humanity  in  men  would  sooner  or  later  revolt  against 
oligarchy  in  business,  just  as  it  has  declared  itself  against  the 
rule  of  the  few  in  politics.  Proportional  representation  in 
appraising  service  values  in  the  industrial  system  must  in- 
evitably take  the  place  of  capitalistic  assignment  of  stipends 
to  the  many  by  the  few." 


FROM     CAPITALISM     TO     DEMOCRACY 


THE     OLD     ORDER    CHANGETH 


For  an  hour  Mr.  Lyon  continned  his  inquiry. 

He  did  not  attempt  to  argue  the  points,  but  seemed  bent 
solely  on  finding  out  exactly  what  Logan  understood  the 
proposed  compromise  to  involve. 

In  his  turn  Logan  could  not  help  wondering  at  the  ease 
with  which  he  adapted  himself  to  the  advocate's  part,  and  at 
his  growing  zeal  for  his  expanding  democratic  ideal. 

Nothing  in  the  examination  had  prepared  Logan  for  its 
sequel.  After  he  saw  that  his  father's  questioning  was  done, 
he  had  the  first  feeling  that  the  most  serious  meaning  of  the 
intei'view  had  not  appeared. 

For  a  few  moments  Mr.  Lyon  closed  his  eyes  and  resumed 
his  posture  of  reflection.  His  face  was  not  as  immobile  as  be- 
fore. The  play  of  strong  emotion  w-as  visible,  but  beyond 
this  Logan  had  no  key  to  the  situation. 

Then  the  older  man  evidently  passed  into  a  struggle  to 
maintain  his  self-command.  He  controlled  himself  other- 
wise, but  in  spite  of  his  effort  his  voice  was  tremulous.  His 
look  reminded  Logan  of  pictures  he  had  seen  of  martyrs  ut- 
tering their  last  farewell  to  earth.  His  words  did  not  at  first 
explain  his  agitation,  but  presently  their  finality  told  Logan 
that  they  meant  to  his  father  the  knell  of  an  era. 

"I  have  seen  the  signs  of  change  in  this  direction  for  many 
years,"  Mr.  Lyon  began,  slowly  and  sadly.  "I  did  not  be- 
lieve they  would  have  to  be  counted  with  in  my  day.  I  can- 
not see  how  good  can  come  of  them,  but  I  believe  a  higher 
AVisdom  overrules.  I  see  that  the  Company  must  yield  to 
circumstances  and  accept  this  compromise  as  the  lesser  evil. 
That  is  my  defeat,  and  it  must  be  my  release.  I  shall  resign 
today,  and  you  must  take  my  place.  So  long  as  I  live  I  shall 
do  my  best  to  help  you  as  loyally  as  you  have  supported  me." 

Then  the  solemnity  in  his  voice  and  look  changed  to  that 
of  the  penitent.  As  he  spoke  out  his  heaviest  grief,  he  seemed 
to  himself  to  be  reading  items  from  the  debit  side  of  The 
Great  Book  of  Remembrance: — "I  may  live  long  enough  to 
make  some  reparation  to  the  father,  and  the  mother  and  the 
child.  I  may  earn  forgiveness  for  devoting  to  business  what 
I  owxd  to  my  boy.  I  thought  it  was  an  irreverent  joke  of 
Halleck's,  but  he  is  right.  It  is  the  hardest  lesson  I  have  ever 
learned.  The  only  Atonement  for  any  one  of  us  is  deliver- 
ing his  own  line  of  goods." 


BETWEEN    ERAS 


OBITER  DICTA 

Every  hour  is  a  crisis ;  every  day  a  transition. 

Today's  vision  is  tomorrow's  foundation. 

If  insight  fails  the  wise  and  prudent,  it  may 

empower  the  innocence  of  babes. 
The  strong,  the  fit,  the  competent  may  be  no 

part  of  the  column  of  conquest,  and  may 

not  know  it  is  on  the  march. 
The  world's  virility  is  so  rich  that  humanity 

reaches  its  goals  at  last,  helped  or  hindered 

by  the  most  capable. 
The  great  bad  is  fear  that  the  end  is  come. 
Men's  discontents  dig  the  channels  of  their 

progress. 
The  world  is  young ;  its  destinies  are  unde- 
veloped ;  the  potency  of  its  future  endorses 

the  audacity  of  its  ideals. 
Let  us  pray  not  to  be  there  when  men's  faith 

ceases    to    proclaim,   A    better   era   dawns 

tomorrow! 

FINIS. 


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